


Make Me Bleed

by Insatiable_Fox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, BDSM, Blood, Blood Kink, Blow Jobs, Body Modification, Bondage, Caning, Hand Jobs, M/M, Male Slash, Past Rape/Non-con, Self-Harm, Violence, Watersports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-11-14 00:39:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11196837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insatiable_Fox/pseuds/Insatiable_Fox
Summary: It’s been five years since the demise of Voldemort and Draco Malfoy is living on the streets after not only being ostracised from the wizarding community but shunned by muggles as well. When a disturbed and damaged Harry Potter appears and hands him an olive branch Draco is fast to accept, but will what Harry asks in return be the start of Draco’s redemption or the final end of his fall?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Before you start, I must thank the wonderful, delightful, unihorncornish Maddy. It is only through her that this piece is grammatically accurate (painstakingly so, for a slang user like me) and that is not inundated with strange, obscure words. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story, and find yourself, at the end, as taken by these two broken boys as I am.

When he was six he knew fear. How it licked through his body; the paralysis that took root in his limbs and kept him frozen like a marionette, just as much a puppet on a string. Curled fetal-like in a dark corner he cowered, head hidden and eyes shut as his father yelled words that he couldn't distinguish. If only he was brave enough to protect his mother; courageous enough to do something other than fervently wish he could close his ears as easily as he could shut his eyes. Even in the safe clutch of darkness, fear found him. Although, it wasn't the threat of the boogieman which made him sleep hidden in his closet, blanket held close.

 

When he was ten he knew discipline. How to stand, how to sit. How to mask his face so as to not betray the pain. Duties and expectations, the threatened consequences of failed perfection. The mind could not be a slave to the body as much as the body could not rule the mind. A cool facade to be worn; the master of control.

 

When he was eleven he knew rejection. A spurned handshake, a sneered retort. The tracks it burnt in his psyche, unused to the sting of dismissal.

 

Eleven also happened to be the year he knew punishment. The abuse his mother took nothing compared to the bite of a whip or the sting of a hex; failure to be perfect had its consequences. Rules and regulations no joking matter as a Crucio was cast.

 

When he was seventeen he knew desperation. To please. To do what was expected. To do what was right.

 

When he was seventeen he learned that the pain of punishment carried far beyond the walls of his home, or even past the dank filth of the streets where he had been cast. That it wasn't contained to the beatings, the jeers of other, the agony of degradation.

 

When he was seventeen he found out that the worst pain, the worst fear, the worst rejection, came from within.


	2. Chapter One

"Look at you, filthy fucking whore. No better than dog shit, certainly smell like it. Well go on then. Suck it, dick pig."

 Draco obliged, taking the man's verminous cock into his mouth. Hollowing his cheeks, he sucked; rhythmically alternating between deep swallows and teasing licks, his tongue tracing the vein that ran along the underside before swirling around the head. They were all the same to him. Just another dick to blow, to jerk. To have shoved up his ass. It had stopped being violation long ago. Now it was just a means to survive.

 "Oi, slut!" A slap landed on his cheek and Draco pulled back slightly, looking up at the man who towered above his knelt position. "Get on your hands and knees. Gonna fuck that hole like it's never been used before." He doubted it. Anything that he hadn't been subjected to at home had been practiced upon him within the dingy alleys of muggle London. The man moved around to kneel behind Draco’s stoic form, fumbling with his zipper. All too soon pressure was at his entrance, the thick head pushing painfully through the ring of muscle, no thought to the discomfort that it may cause. They never cared. To them, Draco was just another waif selling his body on the streets. A pretty whore to shove their dicks into for five minutes of pleasure before a couple of hastily thrown notes and they were gone.

 The key was to never give a reaction. No tears, no screams. No begs to stop when blood was trickling down his legs from his brutalised ass.

"So loose you could fit a whole ‘nother dick in you. Maybe two. Ever had that, whore? Ever had three cocks up that gaping hole? Bet it left you a whimpering mess. What would your mother say?"

 Draco snapped, anger pulsing through him at the mention of the one person he still cared about. "Don't you dare talk about my mother!" he shouted, jerking away from the man who was momentarily stunned from his outburst. "You don't know shit about my family."

 "You fucking cunt." The man's fist connected with the side of Draco's face as he tried to right himself, sending him sprawling back onto the damp concrete. A kick landed to his ribs, followed quickly by another to his chest leaving him winded. Curling into a ball as the blows fell, they rained down across his huddled form. Pain. Draco was used to pain. Used to the sweet sickness, the battle between his body's need to protect itself and his mind’s steely determination to never show weakness.

 "Whore. Slut. Cunt. Filth. Dirt. Useless pig" The words were thrown at him as relentlessly as the beatings, but all they did was mimic his own internal monologue. The man wasn't shouting anything that Draco hadn't realised when he was first thrown to the streets five years ago and resorted to pleasuring strangers just to stay alive. His own self image was defined by much darker things then the idiot hunched over his battered body could ever say.

 With a heavy boot keeping him pressed to the ground, Draco glanced through a rapidly swelling eye as the man took his dick in hand and started fervently jerking himself off. Within seconds he was cumming  in hot streams of milky seed over Draco's battered and bloody face. Tucking himself back in, he cast an eye over his limp body.

 "Reckon you'll survive, though it wouldn't be a loss if you just gave up and fucking died. Better think about who you run that mouth to next time, you little faggot." The man spat at Draco before turning and leaving, his hands thrust deep within his jacket pockets.

 Draco needed to get home. Or, to the pathetic pile of blankets which offered the only sort of solace within his pitiable excuse for an existence. Panting, he pulled himself to his hands and knees, his aching body protesting from the beating it had just taken. Beaten. That was the word he would use, and not just from that man; he was an abandoned carcass left to rot, ostracized from not only the wizarding world,  but shunned by muggles as well. No matter where he went, he would never be more than the disgraced Malfoy heir, abhorred by his once-acquaintances, eschewed by old contacts and desecrated by the very people on which he relied to survive.

 Eventually he found his way to his feet, propping himself against the cool stone of a building. He lent his face against the brick, letting the cooling damp soothe his throbbing head. Morning was coming, and Draco needed to get back home, lest some unsuspecting muggle find him and complicate his life even more. There was a reason he was banned from the shelters scattered around the city. The price for showing his face at any one of them again would be death.

Using the wall to support himself, Draco made his way to the mouth of the alley where he took stock of his surroundings, noting with grim pleasure that he wasn't too far from his bed. Fifteen long minutes later and he was rounding the bend, overpass in sight and below it, his refuge. Ducking under a concrete beam he jerked to a stop, confronted with the sight of another person sitting against the supporting pillar of the bridge, a ratty blanket thrown over their legs.

"So the whispers on the streets were true" the man stated without looking up. Head hung, bearded and bedraggled, the only movement was of a thumb tracing hypnotically over the underside of a wrist.

"Who sent you?" Draco asked. He didn't know how he had been found, or by which gang, but he had been unable to pay their territory costs, so now he would pay with his life. He found that he couldn't bring himself to care much.

"No one sent me." The voice was low and raw, lacking of any emotion.

"Then why are you here? Who are you?" None of this was making sense, and all he wanted to do was curl down on his blankets and lapse into the sweet oblivion that the mixture of tiredness and concussion promised to give.

"I didn't know anyone could fall as low as me, and I've been falling for a long time. What happened that pushed you over the edge, Malfoy?"

It couldn't be. Of course it was. "I could ask you the same thing, Potter."

Harry Potter.

Harry Potter: Saviour of the Wizarding World, War Hero, Golden Boy.

Harry Potter: Winner of Tri-Wizard Tournaments, Prodigy of Dumbledore, Killer of The Dark Lord himself.

Harry Potter: dirty and grimy, who stunk as bad as Draco did, looking and sounding like he was dead inside.  

"That's the question we're all asking, isn't it. Where was the tipping edge? What was the point of no return? When was the drop? Because by the time I knew I'd passed it, there was no going back." Potter was crazy. Harry Potter was sitting on his blankets, having some sort of philosophical conversation with him, and Draco could hardly stand upright.

"You're in my bed, Potter, and I'm close to passing out." Potter made no indication that he had heard Draco, continuing to obsessively stroke his wrist, so he threw caution to the wind. If Potter had wanted him dead, he would have been dead, and Draco was long past caring what others thought of him and how he chose to survive. Instead, he shuffled over the compacted dirt floor and collapsed beside his once-enemy, pulling a smelling blanket over him to ward off the cold. "You don't flinch when you see me. People normally do."

"We've all got scars to hide, Malfoy,” Potter commented emotionlessly, breaking his trance by brushing a hand over his matted hair, dirty jumper sleeve riding up in the process to reveal a mass of angry red cuts and long healed scar tissue. "It's just yours are judged harder than most."

Draco could have commented that it was in fact Potter who boasted the legendary scar. He could have screamed at him, cursed him for his family's downfall, his mother's pain and Draco's demise. Asked him how dare he show up, looking as filthy and fucked as him, when Potter had had the world on a platter.

What he did was go to sleep.

 

* * *

 

When Draco woke, Potter was asleep beside him. He had slumped in his slumber, an arm thrown out and his sleeve scrunched, exposing the patchwork of scarring that laced up the pale underside to the elbow. Fresh cuts were layered upon old, creating a haunting sort of artistry. If it wasn't for the medium, he would call it beautiful.

Draco tentatively fingered the threadbare hem of his own sleeve, then making up his mind he pulled it up.. Shiny, mottled skin stared back, black lines running like an undercurrent just beneath the skin _. 'It's just yours are judged harder than most'._

Potter's words resonated through his frayed mind. It was true that Draco had paid for his mistakes at a considerably higher price than others. His father's wrath as a child when he did not live up to the Malfoy Standard. The punishment when he failed to befriend The Boy Who Lived. Draco's pathetic inability to receive higher marks than a mudblood.

Then the Dark Lord had come, marking the start point of Draco's fall.

An impossible task was set. The agonising war within him to do what was expected of him, or to do what he had long suspected now was right. Frustration, fear, the slow disintegration of faith. Anxiety and anguish. The scars of Sectumsempra long lost among countless others that marred his thin body. However, the memory would always remain: total desolation and the fleeting hope that it would finally be over.

He had failed the light, he had failed the dark; and in turn they had both cast him out.

Draco had survived, but that survival had come with a cost. With no wand and no way to defend himself he had quickly fallen prey to the sharks that ran the shelters, taking more than he should and promising them more than he could give. Consequently, he had been thrown once again to the streets. After payment in the form of pleasure had been taken, of course.

So a cycle had commenced until the day there were no homes willing to take a dirty teenage boy, and he had been forced improvise.  

It was Potter stirring that pulled Draco out of his dark musings, mind lost wandering through the desolate bleak paths of memory and crumbling buildings which once housed self-worth. Draco hurried to push his sleeve back down, masking the ruin of flesh with the ever present mark still visible and turned to look at Potter who was peeling crusted eyes open and squinting even in the deep shadows of the bridge.

"You're still here" he stated.

"This is where I live, Potter." Draco tried for snarky, but all that came out was a voice emulating Potter's own dead tone.

"Come home with me."

Draco froze, wondering if last night's activities had left him with more than a bruised and aching body. "Why?"

"Does it matter why?" Potter asked, turning to stare at him with eyes that were still impossibly green.

He thought about it. A roof over his head, a shower. A reprieve from selling his ass, even if it was only for a few days. "I guess not."

Potter got to his feet a little unsteadily, bracing a hand on the concrete wall for support. Draco followed suit, jumping when Potter wrapped an arm around his bicep and pulled him close. "Its been a while since I did this" Potter muttered, furrowing his brows.

"Fuck, Potter. Are you drunk?" Draco asked, smelling for the first time the stench of alcohol beneath the general stink of filth.

Potter look at him, and for a second his eyes lightened before they quickly fell flat again. "Does it matter how I survive, Malfoy?"

"I guess not." Who was Draco to judge? Potter grunted and then Draco was lost to the sick spinning tightness as Potter disapparated them.

As soon as they appeared, Draco was gone, pulling out of Potter's embrace to heave stringy bile over stone floor, his stomach not full enough to provide a full vomit. It had been years since he had felt the embrace of another's magic wrap around him. It was strangely intimate. "I haven't been apparated in ages" he muttered, wiping the back of his mouth with his jersey. Straightening, Draco looked around the shabby room which he assumed was Potter's kitchen. Grime marred the cabinets and floor, the counter tops a mess of empty spirit bottles. A chair was leaning broken beside a fist size hole in the wall and what appeared to have once been a beautiful antique wooden mirror now knelt smashed, its jagged edges spread below it like the shed plumage of a once-regal bird. The solid oak kitchen island stood in the middle of the room, with what Draco horrifically realised was dried blood sprayed wildly across the surface. It would have looked more at home in an abattoir.

It was the first roof Draco had been under in three years. It was glorious.

Draco turned back to Potter, who was wearing his now familiar haunted expression. "How long can I stay?" he asked, knowing that he would be happy as long as Potter allowed him long enough to have a proper shower and sleep in a bed.  

Potter glanced away, eyes falling on the stained mess of table. "As long as you like."

"I can't give you anything in return." He didn't know why he was here, why Potter had turned up in the middle of muggle London and taken Draco away. He didn't know what was wrong with the other man, who looked like he carried as many ghosts in his head and as much death in his eyes as Draco did. He didn't know what Potter wanted from him, but there was very little that Draco wouldn't give just to be sleeping in a house. Those were the perks of having nothing to lose.

Potter ignored Draco's question, bending to pick  a sliver of glass from the broken mirror off the floor. He held it up to the light, studying it intensely as if expecting something other than his own dirtied expression to be looking back. "A piece of mirror saved me, you know?"

"What?" Draco asked, wishing that this… shell of Potter would start making sense, or at least show him where a shower was.

"I’d be dead without it. Fuck, I should be dead. It wasn't me who won the war, Draco" Potter blandly stated. "The people who died, the people who I got killed. They are the real reason. All those bodies, and their blood on my hands. For instance, if Aberforth wasn't watching for me in a piece of mirror, he wouldn't have sent Dobby. I would have died in the Manor, Dobby would still be alive, and you would have remained the aristocratic Draco Malfoy."

"Draco Malfoy wasn't that great to be." He breathed out. "And trust me Potter, I deserve everything I got."

Potter stepped closer to him, and fuck, Draco hadn't been looked at like that for a very long time; like he wasn't just a piece of meat. "When did you get so humble?"

"About the same time I started selling myself just to stay alive" Draco blandly stated, not welcoming the reminder of his past. "Probably round the point you gave up. Now if you’ll excuse me, I'm going to go wash the spunk from the last three years out of my ass."


	3. Chapter two

Draco had forgotten what a shower felt like. Yes, the shower itself was filthy, and there was only a long-forgotten sliver of soap with which to clean himself; but the hot water ran down his hair and body, slowly eroding layers of dirt and grime, easing aches and cleansing his mind. Nothing could erase his self-loathing, or the marks left from years of mental and physical abuse, but a hot shower did a lot in clearing his head and lifting his spirits.

Draco didn't hear the door open; nor the drop of clothes  removed. He did, however, notice Potter pull back the shower curtain, revealing his completely naked self. "You were wrong before. When you said you had nothing to give me." 

"If you wanted a whore you could have bought me off the streets.” 

Potter ignored him, stepping into the shower to stand beside Draco, seemingly unaware of his naked body. "It's you Malfoy. You make me react. I've been numb inside for so fucking long. Do you know what it feels like to wake up every morning with the faces of your loved ones fresh in your mind? Knowing that you killed them?”

"And how the fuck do you think I feel!?” Draco yelled back, finally snapping in the face of this fucking corpse that should have been the Saviour of the Wizarding World and instead was just as fucked up as he was. "In the end, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I was so fucking eager to please  _ Daddy  _ I kept right on doing it. Do you know how it fucking feels,  _ Harry,  _ to be hated, not only by the 'good' people, but the bad as well?"

"I know what it's like to feel as though you have no control over your life." Potter’s voice was low and bitter, making Draco shiver. "I know what it's like to be born into a role, have every decision made for you.” Potter let out a feral laugh. "Don't you think it's funny, Draco, that we come from opposite sides, yet we've both been dumped and left to rot by the people who were meant to care the most?"

"I'm a fucking whore, Potter. Men pay me to shove their dicks up my ass or blow their pathetic cocks. That's how I survive. That's how I'm not dead.”

"And I slit my wrists to watch the blood run down my arms so I can try and gain some sort of control over my pitiful world. That's how I survive, Draco. And I want you to make me bleed.” 

_ Fuck.  _ Draco snapped his head up to look at Potter, who was leaning against the shower wall. Water ran in rivulets down his naked torso, highlighting the mass of scars that marred the tanned flesh. "Make you bleed" he repeated dully, refusing to inspect the implications of those three simple words.

"I need you to." Potter was looking at him more sanely than he had so far, yet the words coming out of his mouth were far from it.

"Why?" Draco all but whispered. 

"Does the why matter, Draco? You're bright enough to join the bloody dots." Bitter Potter was back, his words bleak and resentful.

Draco swallowed. "How?" he breathed, his mind already traversing the memories he had tried so hard to suppress. Draco had paid for what he had done, the inexcusable harm he had caused. He didn't want more blood on his hands, whether it had been asked for or not. 

"That's not for me to decide. However you see fit. No one else will fucking judge me for the shit I've done. You're the only person who will, Draco. The only person who can-”

"I can't." Draco was already shaking his head slowly,  eyes cast down. "I don't hate you anymore, Potter. I don't know if I ever truly did. I'm the last person who can judge you for your supposed crimes. You saved us all, and survival always comes at a cost."

"Draco, please. I need this. The why doesn't concern you, just know that I wouldn't have found you if I wasn't desperate. My house is yours for as long as you're here, and you won't need to sell yourself out. Do this for me and your worries will be gone."

Draco thought it was pretty naive of Potter to assume ceasing to be a whore would resolve his worries. Draco's worst marks were internal and self inflicted;  it was his mind that served as the cutting canvas, not his body like Potter. No use in harming something that had already been painstakingly defiled by others. Still, the allure of a house, shelter from the elements, and a chance to finally retrieve some of his lost dignity was like wafting a bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky under a recovering alcoholic's nose and telling them not to taste. He didn't have the will to refuse.

Gathering as much poise as he could muster, he finally met Potter's dark eyes. "When do I start?"

"Now."

* * *

 

* 

_ My teenage self wouldn't have believed this,  _ Draco thought as he followed Potter down yet another dingy hallway, clad only in a grimy towel slung low on his too-narrow hips.  _ Hell, a day ago I wouldn't have believed this.  _ Potter abruptly opened a door and entered a bedroom, striding over to a closet and riffling through it. Draco paused on the threshold, gently fingering the name adorning the outside of the door. "There was a Regulus in my mothers family tree" he said conversationally, if not a little wistfully. Any reminder of his mother was ripping open a freshly healed wound. 

"It was this one. This was the Black house." Potter had returned from the closet holding a pile of clothes. "You can have his room. Do whatever you want with it."

Draco was stunned. "How did you come into possession of the Black residence?" He asked, confused. 

"Sirius Black was my godfather. He bequeathed it to me before I got him killed." Potter thrust out the clothes. "Here. You can wear anything you find. I'll meet you in the kitchen." 

Draco took the clothes, still astonished as Potter pushed past him and left the room. If this was indeed the Black house, it looked nothing like the hazy memories Draco harbored of long afternoon teas with his horrible Great Aunt Walburga and her decrepit house elf. The elf was probably long dead, which would explain the atrocious state Potter had let the house fall into. Slipping into the clothes Draco sighed in pleasure, relishing the feel of clean material against his flesh. They were huge, the pants pooling comically around his ankles and the top hanging loosely from his gaunt frame, but Draco was in no position, nor had any inclination, to complain. 

He eventually found his way back to the kitchen after more than one wrong turn leading him into eerie dead-ends or grime covered rooms. There had been one point where he passed a mass of torn curtains hanging limply beside what was once obviously a portrait, but had been defaced with three long gouges and smeared with dried blood. He had paused to stare at the destruction and instantly been overcome with a feeling so bleak and dark it felt like his very soul was being sucked out; a dementor’s kiss. He had barely resisted the urge to weep profusely or beg to be struck down where he stood. 

Upon entering the kitchen, Draco found Potter sitting cross-legged on the abattoir table, hands resting palm up on his knees, completely naked. "Do you have a thing about clothes?" Draco asked, at a loss for what to say. 

"They ruin it" Potter mumbled. "How could I accept who I am when I'm hiding behind clothes? I repent with my blood; it would be a farce to cover it up."

"Look, Potter. You don't need to do this" Draco stalled, Potter's words echoing in his head uncomfortably and making him decidedly uneasy. 

“Use my first name, Draco. Don’t distance yourself from me” Potter murmured softly, as if he was comforting a child. The tone rubbed against Draco's skin and he fought down a surge of anger at Potter for putting him in this situation.

"Fine,  _ Harry"  _ he sneered, mustering courage and sounding more like the boy at Hogwarts then he had for a long time. "You want to bleed? So be it." Draco bent to pick up the shard of glass Harry had been holding earlier, lightly running his finger over the tip. Crude and unworked, it would serve its purpose. 

Draco slowly paced around Harry's still form, ignoring the growing sickness in his stomach as he tired to view Harry's body as an object and not a hurting, bleeding human. Finally, he paused directly in front of the other man, his breathing slightly ragged. Stepping close so his hips were pressed against the wood, Draco reached out and pressed the tip of the glass to Harry's chest, eyes flicking hesitantly to seek Harry's, but they were closed. Tentatively, he pulled the shard down across marred flesh.

"Harder" Potter grunted, startling Draco by taking his wrist and pressing it firm against his body. A drop of blood welled at the point, healthy red and vibrant. Draco stared transfixed at the drop as his hand acted of its own accord, ripping a long clean slash, followed quickly by a second running parallel. A quiet sob broke Draco's horrified state, and he looked up to find tears running down Harry's cheeks. 

'Fuck!" Yelled Draco, stumbling back and dropping the glass, before quickly bending over and once again heaving bile over the floor. He heard Harry shifting behind him and looked up to see the man slowly run a finger through the cut before lifting it to his mouth, tongue flicking out to taste the blood. “Shit. Shit! Fuck Harry! You've got to stop the bleeding! Where's your wand?"

"Draco. Stop. Leave it." 

"But you’re a Wizard, Harry!" Draco felt compelled to yell out. "You have a wand. Heal yourself! There won't even be a scar!"

"I like the scar" Harry bit back, but there was no malice behind the words. He just sounded tired. "The scars are there to remind me that I am slowly paying back my debt."

"But don't you think they are… grotesque?"

"You think yours are?"

"Of course" Draco ground out bitterly. “They were put there against my will, branding me with my wrong-doings forever. Despite the fact that I've been cast out from my own kind, they also strove to ensure it would be impossible for me to ever forgive myself; not when all I see each  day is these marks and am forced to remember how I got every individual one.”

"That's where we differ, Draco. You didn't ask for your scars; they serve as an unhealthy reminder of what has been and what will never be. Mine… I put mine there. I chose to mar my body. Which leads me to ask why you didn't heal  _ yours,  _ considering last I looked, you were a wizard too."

At that Draco snarled. "Why do you think Potter! You think I'm like this willingly? Well let me tell you a little story about the upbringing of poor old me. Daddy Malfoy saw fit to confiscate his precious son’s wand every time he came home for the holidays; Merlin forbid he give me a chance to fight back as he Crucioed me for each of that year’s failures. Merlin forbid, Potter, that he give me a way to defend myself as he came into my room each night and  _ taught -”  _ his mouth curled round the word "- me how a  _ real  _ wizard acted! Do you know at what age those particular lessons started! Six, Potter! I was fucking six! And Merlin fucking forbid, Potter, that even after I had been used as the Dark Lord’s fucking sex toy and extricated from my family home - thrown to the muggle streets - that I should be able to protect myself with a wizard's fucking basic right: A wand!" Draco was screaming by then, the words running together as he let himself feel the injustice of the situation for the first time in a long while. Breaking off abruptly, he stilled, chest heaving and breath coming out in panting huffs. Closing his eyes, Draco was appalled to feel wetness gracing his cheek. He rubbed his arm harshly against his face, attempting to be rid of the condemning evidence that showed he still  _ cared _ . No, Draco had let that go a long time ago. "Then you come along, and you're all fucked up and your life's a mess, but at least you have a wand. You could sort your shit out in seconds. I don't understand why you and your house are both filthy and derelict, when all it would take is a few cleaning charms."

Harry had been silent throughout Draco's outburst, but now he hopped off the bench and came to stand in front of him. In a gesture as old as time he wrapped his arms around Draco, pulling him close.    


"I don't need your sympathy" Draco tried, pushing away, but Harry was deceptively strong and simply held him closer.

"It's not sympathy. It's empathy for what you've been through. It's the fact that you probably haven't been held by someone who has no sexual motives for a long time. It's because I'm standing here, looking at a man who I hated for so many years, only to find out that his life has been as hard as mine."  

"You could have had anything you ever wanted" Draco couldn't help but state sorely, even with Harry's arms still wrapped around his thin waist. "The world bowed down to you, Potter." 

 

"Call me Harry” Harry gently chided, before letting out a heavy sigh. "And you know that's not the truth, Draco. People wanted a hero, but they got a scared seventeen year old with fucked up issues and a hell of a lot of luck."

Draco pulled away from Harry's embrace, plastering a fake smirk on his face in an attempt to compose himself. “Well, well, well. Are you saying the Great Harry Potter, Golden Boy, and all ‘round Saviour of the World, God, Saint, and our leading protagonist, isn't perfect?"

  
Harry just let out a small smile, his face strangely wistful. "We’re all equal, Draco. We all cut and we all bleed and we all die."


	4. Chapter Three

Harry had sauntered off soon after their argument, muttering something along the lines of ‘heal the wounds?! Fucking heal the wounds... no idea’ and Draco had gone to investigate his temporary lodgings, needing to be out of the kitchen immediately.   
  
Regulus’ room deemed to be distraction enough for Draco, allowing him to stop obsessively replaying his previous actions towards Harry. The young man had lived up to his name, the room finished in a colour scheme one could only describe as black. Taking stock of the room properly for the first time, he noticed an assortment of strange items littered throughout the room, haphazard piles resting precariously against any free surface. Draco bent to pick up a tarnished silver cup that rested by his foot, dropping it with with a start when he felt the dark magic thrum through him.   
  
“The whole house is probably teeming with dark artefacts. Aunt Bella would have loved it” Draco muttered to himself testily as he gingerly picked his way through the room, being careful not to step on anything. “Fuck the psychotic bitch to hell.” He would have to clear a path through the wreckage as soon as possible or he would find himself cursed with the first slip of his mind.   
  
Harry had said he was free to do with the room as he wish, but Draco was hesitant to start making changes. Not so much because he didn't trust Potter to keep his word, but more that Draco didn't trust himself to not fuck up the opportunity like he had every other olive branch he’d been offered. The self harm; well, that was a different story. What had triggered Potter to move from self mutilation to seeking out Draco was unknown, but that step in itself meant Harry was falling deeper, rather than healing.    
  
Draco had his own issues embedded deep within his psyche, never mind the whole herd of skeletons in the closet. He was the last person who should be fixing the Boy Who Lived when Draco’s own title could be the Boy Who Didn't. Still. There was something so fundamentally wrong about seeing Potter broken and bleeding, shunning the pedestal that Draco could have sworn he longed to grace. Harry had compared the two of them, saying that they weren't so different, but Draco failed to see how a homeless ex Death Eater turned whore, devoid of even a wand, was anything like the other man. Yet maybe the redemption of Harry Potter would be the last nail in the wood; proof that Draco had paid enough and that it was time to move on.   
  
Draco needed to go back and find the tipping point that had sent the Golden Boy falling off the edge; somehow erase the compulsion resting inside Potter to pay for his so-called sins.    
  
He had an awful feeling that he was going to have to make Potter bleed again, and this time not just in blood.    
  
Crossing the room to the bed, Draco sat down, running a hand absently over the faded cover, the material feeling like the softest cashmere after years of coarse rags. His hand brushed against something small and solid tangled in the sheets. Being mindful of the cursed cup he gingerly edged it out from under the mess of blankets, his fingers freezing as his eyes touched on the tarnished metal.    
  
A Slytherin house ring.    
  
_ He was eleven and due to start Hogwarts in a month. “Draco” his father had spoke softly, entering his room. “I have something of the utmost importance to speak to you about.” _ _  
_

_ Draco sat up in his bed, the covers pooling delicately around his young frame. “Yes f...father?” he had stammered, fervently hoping that this wouldn't be another one of his father’s ‘lessons’.  _ _  
_

_ Lucius had come to sit on the edge of the bed. “You know what this means, I hope, Draco?” he had asked, holding out his hand where a ring had sat heavy on his finger. _ _  
_

_ “It’s the Slytherin ring father. Given to only the most deserving of wizards and witches to grace the Slytherin house” he replied, parroting the information he had grown up with. _ _  
_

_ “Do you think I am deserving of this ring, Draco?” _ _  
_

_ “Of course father” he had dutifully answered, still young enough to believe his father hung the moon and his mother was the most perfect woman ever born. _ _  
_

_ “Kiss it, Draco. Kiss the ring.” Draco had stared up for a second with wide eyes before quickly darting forward to kiss his father’s ring. His father had studied him for a long minute before slipping the piece of jewellery off his finger. He cast a quick spell on the room before turning back to his son. “Get undressed, please, Draco. That’s a good boy” he hummed as Draco silently complied, tears threatening to spill. “And no crying now. Malfoy's don't show emotion.” _ __  
_ Draco had turned to his father, small body shaking as he tried to cover his now naked form. Lucius had sneered before batting Draco’s hands away to reveal himself. “Don’t be silly, Draco. Now, take my ring and get onto your hands and knees.” _ __  


_ “Pardon, father?” Draco hesitantly questioned. _ _  
_

_ “Take it, Draco” Lucius had hissed, thrusting it into his son’s hands before he cast a spell forcing small limbs into the desired position. Choking on a cry, Draco felt his father’s hand smooth down the soft skin of his hip. “For this lesson I want you to look at the ring. The whole time, no taking your eyes off it. Perhaps it will serve as a reminder once you enter Hogwarts how real men act, prompt you to remember what this family expects of you when you are undoubtedly placed in Slytherin. And the consequences if you do not perform up to standard.   _ _  
_

_ His father had moved his hand to Draco’s arse cheeks, spreading the delicate flesh before letting out a small grunt and thrusting into his son, his own robes hastily pushed aside. Draco had spent the night staring blankly at the ring held in his hands as his father fucked him and cooed at the blood running slick around his dick. _ _  
_

_ It wasn't the first time his father had violated him. _ _  
_

_ It wasn't the last. _   
  
Draco was pulled out of his sick flashback to find himself being shaken roughly, his eyes flashing open and a strangled gasp forced from his mouth. On instinct he pulled his body in, tucking his limbs close and wrapping his arms around his legs in an attempt to protect himself.   
  
“Draco” Potter spoke softly, as if Draco was a small animal, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. He reached his hand towards Draco and he flinched, clambering back till his spine was pressed against the headboard. Harry’s brow furrowed and Draco took a deep breath, bringing himself back to the present and attempting to clear himself of the memory the ring had triggered.    
  
“Fuck!” Draco yelled in frustration, the terror fading only to be replaced by helplessness. “This is fucking bullshit.” He let out a pained groan, uncurling his body before finally meeting the gaze he could feel burning a hole in the side of his head.   
  
“I was just walking past, you were panting and gasping. You wouldn't fucking snap out of it, thought I was going to have to slap you.”   
  
“I’m sorry my uncontrollable flashbacks irritate you” Draco snapped. Sighing, he ran his fingers through still damp hair, misunderstanding what Harry was saying from the state he was in. “I’ll go now” he said awkwardly, eyes darting away to rest on the door. “Thank you for the shower.”   
  
“Where are you going?” Harry shot out quickly, in what was almost a panic.   
  
“Back. I can’t help it if shit triggers me, but luckily you don't need to witness it.”   
  
“I don't care about fucking panic attacks, or whatever the hell that was, Draco. Don’t you think that would be a little hypocritical if I did? Anyway, isn't here better than selling yourself?”   
  
“Maybe I like it, Harry. Maybe that's what I deserve” he stated in resignation. “Why do you care so much? Not like I have any virtue left to protect, and you don't do the hero thing any more. Apparently” he added under his breath.    
  
“I never denied having my own reasons” Harry replied darkly.    
  
“Right. Bleed.” Draco laughed bleakly. “You know, Harry, you really got the short end of the stick. I get to stay here, provided with clothes, water, roof, a bed, and all I have to do in return is a few cuts.” He didn't mention how hard those cuts were to perform. “I mean, shit. I would have sucked you, fucked you, and bleed you just to have a place to stay. Imagine that. Your own live in whore.” Draco wasn't sure why he was insisting on speaking the bitter words; instinct to degrade himself and diminish his worth a constant need.    
  
“You’ve been treated hard enough” Harry spoke quietly, his voice oddly rough.   
  


“More like you don’t want a filthy Death Eater who’s been fucked by The Dark Lord. Save it, Harry, I neither want nor need your pity, and if I was you, I wouldn’t fuck me either.”   
  
Harry was silent, still perched awkwardly on the edge of the old mattress, his thumb gently tracing over his wrist in a movement Draco was starting to recognise. “What happened to it?” he finally asked, and Draco had to strain to hear the soft words.   
  
“To what?” he asked, honestly confused.   
  
“Your mark. I saw it in the shower. What happened to it?”   
  
Draco clenched, arm drawing back instinctively to hide behind his back. “It’s the Dark Mark, Potter. It’s never been pretty.”    
  
“You know what I mean, Draco.” Harry was staring intently at his arm, as if he could will Draco’s sleeve to disintegrate on the spot and reveal his ruined flesh for all to see.    
  
“Acid.” Potter looked up, alarmed at Draco. “Fire, then acid.”   
  
“Who?” Harry all but breathed out.   
  
“Me. And then them. Now, leave it.”   
  


* * *

*

  
Somewhere in the house, someone was screaming.   
  
A resonant, tortured howl that emanated from deep within the body; a symphony of anguish wrenched from the darkest cavity that rested within the soul. Low and guttural, it seemed to seep into the innermost bowels of Draco’s existence, shredding its way through his very core, leaving him gasping in torment.    
  
Flinging himself out of bed, Draco ran, searching for the concinnity of pain that was radiating throughout the house. Yanking open a door, Draco stumbled towards a thrashing Harry, shaking him roughly and ripping a strangled gasp from his mouth as he sat up abruptly in bed, arms already fumbling beside him as though searching for something.     
  
“Harry, you were screaming… fuck I just heard this sound and I-” Draco was stammering, words spilling out of his mouth in the face of horror, but Harry was louder, his voice drowning out Draco’s feeble words.   
  
“Bleed me. Bleed me, Draco. You need to bleed me, cut me, mark me, scar me, bleed me, need to bleed, Draco, make me bleed-” Harry lunged frantically at Draco, grabbing his hands and pulling him roughly onto the bed, cutting off his frenzied chant as he shakily presented his wrists to Draco. “Now, Draco, do it now, please. I need it.”   
  
“You’ve already done it this morning! And I can’t, not after that-”   
  
“You said you would!” Harry interrupted hysterically, eyes wild as they flicked from Draco’s face to his wrists and back up, fist clutching the blade Draco could only assume he had been looking for before. “Why do you question it?!”   
  
Draco sagged, all fight leaving his body as he stared at Harry’s broken form. Silently holding out his palm he felt the deceptively insignificant weight of the blade drop onto it, and he disjointedly wondered why it didn’t feel heavier when it held life and death in its steel.    
  
Harry closed his eyes, faintly murmuring “cut after cut after cut” under his breath as Draco gently ran the pad of his thumb over the ruined flesh of Harry’s wrist. As quickly and efficiently as he could, he pulled the blade as hard as he dared over the skin, A to B, repeating the movement on the other wrist.   
  
“Down, not across” Harry quietly chastened, but the slits were complete and blood was already starting to seep hypnotically down his wrists. Draco stared numbly as Harry sighed, languidly stretching a wrist out to inspect it before running his tongue over both cuts. “Thank you, Draco” Harry said, his words almost but not quite slurred. Draco left the room quietly, getting back into his own bed while futilely attempting to keep his inner demons away.    



	5. Chapter Four

Draco slept late the next morning, only rousing from a dream of shadowed figures and red light when Harry stumbled into the room.

“A wise man once told me, Draco, that everything was all in my head.” 

Draco struggled up, hugging the musty blankets to his body and giving Harry a weary look. “That what is all in your head?” he asked, somewhat reluctantly, wishing he could crawl back under the covers where oblivion lurked; tantalising and promising.

“Everything. Although apparently that doesn't mean that it’s not real.” Harry frowned, swaying slightly, before fixating back on Draco. “You are very skinny” he commented with another frown.

Draco paused, taking in Harry’s bloodshot eyes and shaking hands. “Have you been drinking?” he asked cautiously, not knowing how this Potter would react.

“It's good to drink after bleeding” he replied, making Draco wince as he remembered the last 36 hours. “I can’t remember why though.” 

“Funny that” Draco muttered under his breath. He had never been one for alcohol, as appealing as it had sometimes seemed whilst living on the streets. It was the memory of his father that always stilled his hand, his mother's pleading whimpers as he pulled back a clenched fist, the sickening crack of bone breaking and the smell of spirits heavy on his father's breath. 

“You need food” Harry stated, eyes flicking over every visible part of him, leaving Draco feeling exposed.

“Do you have food?” Draco asked, remembering the broken kitchen and the immense number of empty bottles.

Harry smiled, then paused, brow furrowing. “I have Gin. And Tequila and Vodka and Whiskey. Maybe even some Rum.” The last part was added with notable excitement.

“But no food” Draco felt the need to add.

“No food.” Harry looked lost for a minute, eyes glancing around the dirty room helplessly, before once again returning to Draco. He stepped forward and Draco braced himself, but all Potter did was gingerly trace a finger over Draco’s swollen jaw. “When did this happen?

“The day you appeared at my home” Draco replied, concentrating on the fingertip still resting against his jaw. He couldn’t help but notice how soft it was. “Did you honestly not realise?”

“I was focused on you.” Harry smiled again, making Draco’s stomach clench momentarily. “We need to get you food. Too thin” he added, his voice dropping along with his hand, which came to rest against Draco’s gaunt ribs.

“Fine” Draco replied, scrabbling out of the bed and grabbing a pair of pants from the wardrobe. He unceremoniously dropped the pair he had on, not caring whether Harry saw. After selling his body for years, any dignity or modesty he had once held was long gone, misappropriated by the very men Draco had relied on to survive. He shot a quick look at Harry anyway, finding him staring unashamedly. “It’s going to cost you, Potter” he snapped out, yanking on the clean pants and resenting the feeling which grew in his stomach under Harry’s heavy gaze. 

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind paying.” 

Draco stilled briefly, before forcing his hands to keep buttoning up the pants. “I think you've paid enough already” he quietly replied. 

“Is it not up to me to decide that?” 

“I don’t think it will ever be enough, if it’s left up to you.”

“Perhaps that’s what I deserve.”

“Perhaps you never deserved it in the first place, Harry.” Draco sighed, closing his eyes briefly. The point was moot.  Drunk or sober, Potter wasn’t going to listen to him, not whilst all he could give was empty words. 

Potter grimaced. “Perhaps” he said softly, his adam's apple bouncing as he swallowed. Abruptly, he appeared to drag himself out of what Draco could only assume were his own macabre and twisted self theorisations. “Let’s go get food” Harry hurriedly stated, changing the subject. Draco nodded, only too happy to comply.

* * *

*

“Muggle?” Draco asked, after Harry had apparated them to a deserted alley behind a grey supermarket building, managing to hold in the bile which once again threatened to to escape his mouth.

“I haven’t been into wizarding London for years” Potter emotionlessly answered, grabbing Draco’s wrist and pulling him towards the mouth of the alley. Draco stared up at the sign proudly proclaiming  chain grocery store in awe, before following Harry inside. Coming to stand beside him, Harry looked at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Well what?” Draco was busy staring around the store, the knowledge that they would be buying food heady in his chest. 

“What do you want?”

“You’re going to let me pick?” 

Harry gave him a strange look. “I think you deserve that, don't you?”

“Enough with the deserving” Draco mumbled, but he was already off, stalking down the aisles with barely concealed enthusiasm, his fingers trailing ardently over the brightly coloured boxes and packaging that had been devoid from his life. He grabbed a few off the shelves, not caring so much what they were, simply relishing the fact that he would be able to eat. 

Rounding the corner, he almost walked straight into the back of a man. “Sorry” Draco hastened, already moving past, but a hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him close. 

“Look! If it isn’t the little faggot. Haven't seen you selling that sloppy ass for the last couple of days. Gone and found a poor bastard to feed you in exchange for your filthy mouth ‘round his flabby cock, have you?” 

Draco stared in horror, his hand coming up to cover his still-aching ribs as he flashed back to the beating he had been given just before Potter had found him. He stepped back automatically, the hand on his wrist tightening as he did. His eyes were already scanning for a way past the piece of filth that stood before him, smelling of piss and sex, breath reeking of alcohol. “No. I...” Draco stammered, hating the submission that coursed through him. The need to placate the man. Please him. 

“Cat got your tongue? Or is it some nasty disease from having it pushed up some fuckers arse hole too much?”

There it was. Two options. Fight or flight. He thought of harry, of the desperate need as he had clutched Draco, begging to be cut. 

Fight. 

“Why don’t you check your own dick? That thing harbours everything known to man” Draco snapped back, pushing down the submission and instead revelling in the quick anger that sparked through his body, the stiffening of his muscles and the acceleration of his heartbeat as adrenalin flashed through his nervous system. “I thought I saw a few warts adorning it. Oh, and that smell? Might want to check that out. Or just cut it off. Wouldn't be a loss, as you said to me only a few days ago.” Draco stepped forward, snarling at the hand still curled over his mark. “Go fuck yourself” he spat. 

A fist shot out, too fast for Draco to avoid, finding its target in the gaunt hollow of an already bruised cheekbone. “Last time wasn't hard enough, aye boy? Fucking lost cause. You know what? Reckon your whore mother will be singing my praises when I deliver your body to her doorstep. Be so thankful she bends over and presents her gaping cunt for a good dicking.”

Draco was gasping, holding a shaking palm to his cheek when he felt it; the thrum of wild magic. The shelves beside him shook and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as Harry, seeming to appear out of nowhere, took a step towards the man. A nefarious vigilante; hands clenched and body tensed to fight. A burning man; heat dancing along tanned skin and fire smouldering hot and heavy in steeled eyes. A fallen hero; phoenix struggling from the flames, automatically answering the call for help. 

“Fuck you want? Step back, bitch, or it won’t just be this cock sucker getting beat.” The man stepped forward, letting go of Draco’s arm to stand before Harry. The building shook once again, and the man looked around bewilderedly, letting out a string of expletives when the metal shelving next to him started to lean preciously. “What the fuck is happening!?” he shouted, looking at Harry. There was fear in his voice this time, evident in the shaky tone, the heightened treble, the flash of panic in his eyes, and Draco revelled in it, built on it, the discomposure fuelling his anger and strengthening his resolve. 

Draco moved to stand in front of a trembling Harry, feeling the heat radiating from him across his bare skin. Heavy pants fell onto his exposed neck, but he shoved his awareness of Harry aside, instead focusing back on the man before him. The redemption of Harry Potter could not commence, not until Draco himself acknowledged that he had something worthy to give.   

That he was worth something.

Desperately, he willed his magic into his hands, channelling every last drop of rage, every memory of being defiled and used, every ounce of resentment and anger and  _ need  _ into them, building it onto the courage Harry unexpectedly gave him until the air was positively humming with magic. Yet, unlike Harry, Draco was in control, and  _ his  _ magic was about to find its outlet. 

_ “ _ Crucio!” he cried, holding his palm out wildly at the  _ pathetic excuse of a man _ , willing, hoping,  _ praying _ that it would work. 

The man dropped to his knees, crying out in agony as Draco’s spell washed over him, his face twisting and distorting as he was tortured. Draco gasped,breath coming out in heavy pants as he willed every single drop of intention into his hands, letting the anguished moans wash over him and fuel his resolve. A desperate wail was wrenched forth just before the man blacked out, body slumping and eyes rolling up, limbs limp and distorted in an unintentional mimicry of a dead spider, legs tangled and bent. 

Pulling himself out of the...  _ hypnotised _ … state Draco found himself in, he pulled his magic back, feeling it recede down into his body before he too collapsed in a heap on the floor, his legs giving way from exhaustion. He felt hot hands on his forehead, and looked up wearily to find Harry crouched beside him, staring at him in astonishment. 

“You... wandless! _Draco?!”_ Harry stammered in an uncharacteristic loss of words. Surprisingly strong arms  wrapped around Draco, before the soft c _rack_ of apparation found them back in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. 

“You need to eat” Harry urged, placing Draco as if he were a child into a rickety wooden chair before coaxing something into Draco’s frozen hands. Draco looked down, seeing the unassuming square of lemon cake, abruptly realising that it had been days since his last meal of stolen scraps. Life flooded back through his extremities as he hurried to shove the cake into his mouth, trying and failing to suppress the instinctive need to protect and consume his food as fast as possible.

“Where did you get this?” he asked Harry, uncaring of the crumbs that flew from his mouth at the question. Desperation didn't leave room for basic manners, let alone aristocratic decorum. 

“I may have... pocketed a few things.” Harry had the nerve to look sheepish, which Draco found mildly surprising, considering it had been his means of survival for years. He had assumed the same of Harry, seeing as Potter evidently didn't work, and liquor didn't buy itself. 

Draco paused, noting the compassion and genuine care in the other man's eyes, remembering the strong arms that had apparated him to safety, and the unneeded yet welcome memory of Harry attempting to do what he did best. Be a hero. “Thank you” he murmured softly, eyes locking onto Harry’s before flicking away to rest on a spot of grime on the table. 

Harry looked surprised, brow furrowing. “I didn't do anything.  _ Fucking useless”  _ he added under his breath.

“You did more than you know.” Harry shot him a quick grimace. “I do wonder one thing though?”

“And what’s that, Draco?” Was it him, or did Potter look... uncomfortable?

“When you came - confronted the man. Why didn't you just use your wand?” Harry frowned but didn't answer, seeming to find the shattered remains of the mirror deserving of his utmost attention. Draco stilled, thinking back, examining the interactions between himself and Potter since he had first arrived, the state of the house, the wild magic today. “Harry... You  _ do  _ have a wand, don't you?”

Harry snapped, reeling around to face Draco, hands clenched at his sides. “And what if I don't, Draco? Does that lower the great Harry Potter in your mind's eye? Ever thought about the fact that I might not want that shit any more?! That all that's come from me being a wizard is a  _ fuck ton  _ of dead friends and family, and  _ not one ounce  _ of blame on me!”

Draco sat frozen, hands clutching the sticky remains of his lemon cake. “Harry” he breathed softly, eyes wide. “What happened to your wand? To Ron and Hermione? What happened to  _ you _ ?”

Harry let out a twisted smirk, a look full of self loathing and manic pain. “Well, Draco. Shall I tell you a story? Of how the fucking Great and Noble Harry saved us all, and killed everything he ever loved in the process? Shall I tell you the story of how I fell?


	6. Chapter Five

Harry moved away from the table, crossing the kitchen to grab a half empty bottle of Rum. “This story needs liquor” he answered emotionlessly in response to Draco’s skeptical look. Pulling out a chair, Harry sat down across from him, taking a long swig from the Rum bottle before offering it to Draco.   
  
“I don't drink” He replied quietly, trying not to flinch as the fumes permeated his nostrils.   
  
Potter simply shrugged. “More for me.” He leant back, the image of calm, yet Draco could see the tension. The nerves, evident in the strain of veins against skin in tightly held limbs, the drumming of fingers across the worn wooden table. “So it starts” Harry suddenly announced, with an over emphasised flourish of his hand. “Back when we were seventeen. Well, it probably started before that, but I can't be fucked retelling birth to adulthood.”   
  
“Seventeen is still a child” Draco murmured quietly, before clearing his throat and fiddling with the fraying hem of his sleeve. “You would probably be surprised about how much I know, anyway. Voldemort-” Draco sneered the name “-was quite chatty mid rape. Offensive, really, to be violating, let alone torturing, someone, and only be able to talk about another. How Harry Potter had foiled all his plans since birth.” Draco laughed humourlessly. “But I digress. Please continue, Potter. This isn't about me.”   
  
“Did you know Ron, Hermione, and I were hunting horcruxes seventh year?”    
  
Draco couldn't contain the small gasp that escaped his mouth. “Several?”he asked, horrified. His father had been... was... obsessed with power, and had made him study the magic in depth during fourth year holidays. Yet even Lucius had deemed the cost too high, the sacrifice too much, the magic too dark. To think that someone had made several? Draco shivered involuntarily.    
  
“Seven.”   
  
“Seven?!” Draco parroted, mind reeling as he tried to imagine someone splitting their soul seven times. Not that Voldemort was human. By the end, he was more monster than anything.   
  
“Only six were intentional. When he tried to kill me the curse backfired, and I became the unintentional seventh, and final, one.” A twisted grimace pulled on thin lips. “I died, then came back. Chose to. I still wonder, Draco, if it would have been better for me to just have stayed dead.”   
  
“But Voldemort would have won” Draco tried to point out rationally.   
  
“And what’s to say he didn't, in the end?” Harry all but shouted.   
  
“Harry. Hold on.” Draco tentatively laid a hand over Harry’s slightly shaky one, keeping it there only momentarily before drawing it back into his own lap. “Start at the beginning, or with the war.”     
  
“Right. The war. Battle of Hogwarts. Well, we fought, and it was bloody.” Harry grimaced. “But you know that already. You were there.”   
  
“No. Not really.” Harry looked up at him, startled, a strange look fleetingly crossing his features. “I was at the beginning, obviously.” Draco dropped his voice, fingers absently tracing the ruined lines of his dark mark. “When you saved me. In... in the room. I never thanked you-” His voice broke and he trailed off, shutting his eyes tightly to try to suppress the memories. The cloying stench of Fiendfyre, acidic in his nose, the unnatural heat as it clawed desperately at him. The overwhelming sense of gratitude and  _ hope _ when Harry came back. To save  _ him _ .   
  
“Draco.” Harry's voice was surprisingly soft, considering the edge it held moments before. “You don't need to thank me. But even if you did, now is not the time.” Draco nodded mutely, unable to look at Potter. “When did you leave?”   
  
“Right after” Draco managed to choke out. “You let me off your broom, and I ran. I don't remember where, I'm not sure I ever had a destination. But I found my mother. She was standing in the corner of the great hall, her hand covering her mouth and just  _ staring _ . I don't think I will ever forget that sight, Harry. Of her just frozen in the middle of battle, wand held at her side. She didn't belong there, and certainly not beside the Death Eaters. So I took her hand, and we ran. No one gave us a second look, or tried to stop us. At one point, sh-she tripped over a body on the floor.” Draco stopped abruptly, sucking in a huge breath in an attempt to calm his shaking body. “It was Bellatrix. A-and Mother, she didn't even care. She just looked at her, then pulled me on.”    
  
“She cared more about getting you out” Harry spoke gently.    
  
“She did.” He finally looked up and met Harry’s gaze, resenting the emotion he saw there. “Don’t. Don't look at me like that. Like... I deserved to be saved. That position belongs to you.”   
  
Harry laughed bleakly. “And yet...” He picked up the bottle and took a hefty swig, quickly followed by another. He was silent for a long while, picking absently at the label on the bottle, before he suddenly spoke. “I tried to forget for so long. The sight of Tonks lying broken, blood oozing from her crumpled body. The tortured and terrified screams ripped from innocent children. The acrid stench of Avada Kedavra which permeated every single inch of the castle. Like a smoking tree, recently struck down by lightening. That's what it smells like, to me.” Harry’s eyes were haunted, lost traversing the catacombs of the dead. “Tonks. Remus. Fred. Snape. Sirius. Do you know how many more names I could list? Over fifty innocent people died that day, and I can name every single one. Name every death I'm accountable for.” Harry paused, face hard. “I tried to forget. Fought to bury the flashbacks deep, forgive myself, accept and move on like I was told to. But the memories... they’re like an insidious disease. You think you're winning the battle, moving on. But suddenly you remember, every detail, every face, every death, before you  even had a chance to realise you were beginning to.” A burning man, fire in his eyes. “And then I realised that I didn't want to forget.”   
  
Draco sucked in a breath, his own mind back at the battle. It had never occurred to him that Potter would be anything other than thankful, or relieved, that it was all over. He, like everyone else, had never stopped to question whether the price Harry had paid was too much. “I never realised you felt like that” he said softly.   
  
“I don't want, nor need, your pity” Harry retaliated, mimicking Draco’s own words. “I've said it before, Draco. I deserve this. It. Everything. I led those people into battle, like pigs to slaughter. Blinded by The Saviour. They would have done anything.”   
  
“They didn't do it for you!” Draco snapped, anger pooling in his stomach, the desire to defend those who lost their lives fuelling his words. “They did it for themselves. For the greater good. Because there was no alternative. It was fight, or be ruled.” He shook his head. “It wasn't for you.”    
  
Harry simply sighed. “Do you want to hear the rest?” Draco nodded mutely, clamping his lips together in an attempt to keep silent. “The war left an indelible mark on everyone, but some more than most. Hermione and Ron - everyone from the order - they just wanted to move on. Put it behind them. ‘A fresh start’, as Hermione would say. We had won. Voldemort was gone. Yet no one seemed to notice, Draco, that that wasn't the case. There was no one inherently evil left, but no one innately good either. Death Eaters walked free, the Ministry was still corrupt, and the battles still raged on, even if they were on a intimate scale.” Harry paused to look at Draco, grabbing his hand desperately. “It felt like it was all for nothing!” He rushed out, wildly. “I sat and watched the Weasley’s grieve. Saw Teddy handed off to Andromeda. Saw the ruins of Hogwarts slowly be rebuilt in an attempt to forget the past. Hermione and Ron, they didn't understand. They couldn't see how, if you paused and  _ actually thought _ , it all landed on me. So I left. I couldn't be part of this ‘new’ world, not when it was the same wolf, just wrapped in sheepskin. I left, and now I slowly pay for each drop of blood spilt with my own. Blood for blood.”   
  
Harry fell quiet, and Draco too sat silent, each reliving their own horrors. A tap dripped intermittently somewhere in the room, and Draco thought of the times just after he had been expelled from all that he had ever know. Night upon night he had sat, huddled and twisted in a crevice, with only the desolate sounds of water trickling into a storm drain to interrupt his hatred.  How  _ wrong _ he had been, with his childlike narcissism, to think he had been the only one wronged.    
  
That had ended soon after, of course. He had soon learnt that Voldemort was far from the only evil in the world, that he had deserved everything that had been, and was soon to follow.    
  
With a grimace, Harry abruptly spoke. “Ron was furious when I snapped the elder wand. After finding it endlessly funny that you had been, at one point, unknowingly its master-”   
  
“What?!” Draco half screeched, interrupting whatever Harry had been about to say.     
  
“Not that Voldemort knew” Harry replied conversationally, as if he had not just casually mentioned that Draco had been the master of the most powerful wand in existence. “He thought Snape was. So he killed him to gain it. But its allegiance, at that point, was to me, since I'd disarmed  you at Malfoy Manor.”   
  
“Of course it was” Draco muttered. “Of course I had been the master unknowingly. Sums up my luck pretty well. And of course you snapped it.”    
  
“It had done enough harm, had been the catalyst for enough pain.”    
  
Draco nodded slowly, pushing the knowledge about him aside and mulling over what Harry had said previously. “I find it hard to believe that Granger and Weasley didn't come after you. Once you had left.”    
  
“They did” Harry acknowledged. “ It wasn't pretty. But then they saw, and it gave them the excuse they needed, to go and live their lives.”   
  
“Saw what?” Draco was almost afraid to ask, but he knew if he stopped, it would be the last time Harry would tell.    
  
“The ruins of Great Aunt Walburga’s portrait.”    
  
“By the front door? I saw it.” Draco took a breath. “ It felt... It felt like despair. Like every particle of hope had been sucked from my body to be feasted on.”   
  
“I did that. They were right to run. No one could get rid of that portrait, and many tried. Until I did. It was so easy, Draco. Natural. Like the dark had always been inside me, and I simply gave it a chance to come out. Walburga, she would scream about how I was ‘defiling the great and noble house of Black’, over running it with half bloods and muggle borns. Then she changed her tune, and hit too close to home. That I was the reason so many had died. A traitor to the light, to the magical world. That I had been given the chance to fix the wrongs, but in the end just made sure that blood would be spilt.” Harry took a breath, his hands gripping the edge of the table where he sat rigidly in his seat. “ I already knew that. But Ron and Hermione were there, and all I wanted to do was shut everyone up. Like a bomb, Draco” and Harry closed his eyes. “I just let the dark free, and it succeeded where no others had. Torn apart, in an instant. That’s when  _ I _ lost the last drop of hope. And unknowingly ensured that everyone else who passed it would too.”    
  
Harry stood and left the table, soon appearing with another bottle of liquor. Draco hadn't even realised he had finished the first one, so caught up had he been in Harry's words. He watched Potter raise the tequila to his lips, the quick look of revulsion that passed across his face before he took a deep pull. “Haven’t you had enough?” he chided gently, fearing the outcome if Potter kept drinking. He didn't think he could cut Harry, not tonight, not after hearing what he had.    
  
“What are you? My mother?” Potter snapped, before letting out a manic chuckle.   
  
Draco spoke without thinking. “No. Your friend.” Harry stilled, his hand pausing with the bottle still clutched in it. Draco squirmed under Potter’s intense scrutiny, wondering how a stare could be so forceful when Harry was surely dancing the line of inebriation and analgesic unconsciousness. “What happened to your wand?” he asked, in a slightly desperate attempt to relieve himself of Harry’s all-consuming focus.    
  
“It was snapped. Godric's Hollow. And left there, as Hermione and I ran for our lives.” Harry answered bitterly.    
  
“And you didn't think to get another?”   
  
“It was never the right time, in the beginning. And now, well. It would seem to be more than I deserved. I haven't tried in years, but there used to be a few spells I could do wandless, if I concentrated enough.” Harry furrowed his brows. “As, apparently, can you. Which makes me wonder why you never helped yourself before?”   
  
He studied Harry for a long minute, the dark matted hair curling down past his shoulders, the beard which, if he hadn't know better, would have made him believe Potter was trying to emulate Dumbledore. In Harry's case, Draco guessed it was simply neglect. He was surprised this question had only come up now, had been sure that as soon as Potter apparated them away, Harry would be on him, demanding to know why he was mooching off him when it was apparent Draco could protect himself. Clearing his throat, he turned to answer Harry, unable to meet his eyes. “I'm not sure. Trust me, I was as surprised as you were when it actually worked. I just wanted - well, I wanted him to suffer. To hurt. And I didn't want you to fight my battles.”   
  
Draco was quiet for a long time, his fingertips unknowingly tracing along the fragile underside of his wrist in mimicry of Potter. He eventually looked up; to talk, to defend, he didn't know, but what he saw in Harry's face made every word dry up in his mouth. Awe. Compassion. Sympathy? Empathy. And something else, which made his stomach churn and his body tense. An awareness he hadn't felt since his schooldays, and resented the return of. It made him want to hide like a child under the bed, zealously wishing that Potter never looked at him like that again.    
  
This was him; he was Draco. A nobody, a pitiful excuse for a wizard, a shell that had been used and violated  too many times to count. An abandoned carcass left to rot. A conflagration which ripped through the ones he most cared about, resulting in an indelible stain, a fetid mark to be concealed and forgotten.     
  
A mark which, he now vowed, would never be left on Harry Potter. He would help him, heal him, reinstate the hero he was born to be. And then he would leave him in peace.    
  
“I want to show you something.” Harry's rough voice startled him, pulling him out of his reverie although he managed to quell the sense of panic Potter's words had initially sparked. Getting up from the table, he followed the other man through the house until they stood shoulder to gaunt shoulder outside a door, the gold lettering spelling out a decadently ornate  _ Sirius _ . Harry reached up a hand to gently trace the tarnished characters, before dropping it to rest heavily at his side. He shot a quick look at Draco, letting out a weighted breath and pushed the door open.   
  
A shrine. That was the first thought that came to Draco as he followed Harry inside the dusty room, gingerly stepping over the items that littered the floor. He stifled a laugh when he caught sight of the naked muggle girls whose posters adorned the walls, instead trying to keep his mood sombre, realising that what Harry was doing was taking a leap of faith in him. Potter stilled in the middle of the bedroom, turning to face Draco.    
  
“This is Sirius’ room” he stated obviously, as if Draco hadn't read the sign announcing said person’s room. He waited for Potter to say more, but when it became apparent none was to follow, he fumbled for something so say.   
  
“Did it always look like this?” He gestured around the room.   
  
“I haven't changed a thing.” Harry’s voice was taut with suppressed emotion.    
  
“At all?” Draco asked, incredulous.   
  
“Why should I?” Harry moved to where a dresser sat, its mirror dusty with unuse. “Honour his memory, and all that crap?” Harry stared at his reflection before moving away with a twisted grimace. “I pay for his death, and I do it the only way I know how.”   
  
“By dwelling in a shrine?!” Draco all but shouted.   
  
“By punishing myself. So every time I step in here, every time I go to sleep, I'm reminded of him. I wear his clothes as punishment, just as much as I cut and bleed for it. The cutting; it's an act of violence, turning emotional pain into physical pain. I can deal with the physical, Draco. Not the emotional. And the satisfaction” The manic grin was back, macabre and dark. “,Running my fingers over the scabs and welts left behind. It's a reminder. A reminder of the control I can possess.    
  
“You're fucked” Draco said, unthinkingly. It was only just hitting him now how terribly  _ sick _ Harry was, ill and wrong and in desperate need of closure.    
  
Harry physically blanched at Draco’s words. “I thought you, out of all people, Draco, would have understood.”   
  
Draco just shook his head, his heart breaking a little inside. “I need to get out of here” he said, moving to the door. He cast a quick glance back at Harry, before leaving him standing there, surrounded by the possessions of a dead man he was trying so hard to please, by, Draco suspected, doing the exact opposite of what he would have wanted.


	7. Chapter Six

Three days later, Harry came for him.

 

They had been playing a game of cat and mouse; a subtle dance around the house, both attempting to avoid the other whilst pretending they weren't. For Draco, it was the coward's move. How could he confront Harry again, when he had gone back on everything he had said? He had judged Potter when he had no right to, questioned his methods used to survive. The worst, the part which shamed Draco deep to his soul, was that Harry had never judged him. Never passed comment on the whore who had offered his ass up so readily, sucked whichever cock was pressed into his mouth, licked up the messes made with an eager tongue. The man who had been the subject of Voldemort’s sexual  power plays, his body used and degraded by cold hands and dark curses, instruments of torture, restraints, whips, and the ever present calculating glint in red eyes. The boy whose father had conditioned him to take it, never question it, and act like he wanted it. 

 

Filthy slut. Whore. Eager little dick pig.

 

He had been idiotic to think he could be more than that. 

 

So he had avoided Potter as best he could, as Harry seemed to be doing also. Draco had only ventured out of his room to eat some of Harry’s ill-gotten gains, and stand under the hot shower till the warmth ran out. A moth to a flame, craving the heat he had gone so long without. Until now.

 

Harry looked worse than usual as he stepped into the bedroom where Draco sat, idly flicking through ‘The Histories Of The Great and Noble House of Black’, a tomb of a book. The ever present circles under Potter’s eyes seemed deeper, his body thinner, face drawn and gaunt. He was a dead man again, and it was only in hindsight did he realise some of the death had left Potter’s eyes, all of which had now been brought back by a careless comment spoken from Draco’s lips. 

 

“Draco.” His name rasped out of Harry, dry and hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken in weeks. Or had screamed too much. “Please.”

Draco knew what he was asking for. “No.”

 

A little life flared back into Potter’s eyes at the defiance. “You promised you would.” 

 

“I can’t.”

 

“You’ve said that before.” Harry’s voice was hard.

 

“But now I mean it.” Couldn't Potter  _ see _ ? 

 

“Please.” There was a desperate edge to the word.

 

“No.”

 

Harry’s hand tightened on the doorframe he was gripping, the tendons popping out under the pressure. “Are you happy,  _ Draco _ ?” Potter asked, and there was malice in his tone, Draco’s name spat out like it pained Harry to even say it. “Isn't this what you had always wanted? Me under your thumb? Even after you insult me, I come crawling back to you like some desperate child, pleading for the intoxicating blackness your cuts give and the judgement they rain down. Begging you to do what even I can't. Begging you to drag me back from the edge. Begging you to make me bleed, so I can repent. Are you going to withhold that from me? The cuts you carve, my blood that flows forth? Are you going to deny the justice it brings?”

 

It killed Draco to refuse, to break his promise. But a burning Potter was better than dead Potter. A burning man was an alive man; a man who wanted to live.

 

“Let me do something else for you” Draco tried, desperately attempting to avoid another cutting, while still keeping fire in Harry’s eyes. “Let me help you. Please, Harry. For me.”

 

“There’s nothing else you can do” Harry whispered wildly, desperately pleading.

 

“Let me shave you.” The words were out before Draco had even thought them through, but they had the desired effect. Harry stilled abruptly, fixing green eyes on Draco. “Trim your hair, clean up your face” he tried to explain, gesturing randomly at Potter. It was only now that he was realising the repercussions of what he had said, still a blade on skin dragging over delicate flesh, but hopefully it would sate Harry. 

 

Harry ran a hand through his dark, matted hair. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, seeming to be honestly perplexed, and a small smile pulled at Draco’s lips. 

 

“Harry. When was it last cut? When did you last shave?”

 

Harry furrowed his brows. “Hermione did. Horcrux hunting.”

 

“Don’t you think it’s time?” Draco pulled at his own strands of hair. “I’ll do a better job of yours than I have with mine.”

 

Harry stared at him for a long moment, thumb tracing a wrist, before he finally nodded. “Kitchen” he stated, before leaving. 

 

When Draco entered the kitchen shortly thereafter,where he was once again confronted with Potter, sitting crossed legged on the abattoir table, chest bare. Although, to Draco’s relief, he was wearing pants. “There should be scissors somewhere” Harry commented in a low voice. “And here.” He held out an object for Draco. “To shave.” Draco took the blade, admiring the craftsmanship, the carved bone handle and inscribed metal. Potter watched him intently as he moved around the room, locating a stiff but usable pair of scissors before filling up a dubiously clean bowl with warm water. 

 

“There's no soap, so it will have to be done bare” he informed Potter as he came to stand in front of the man.

 

“I don't mind” Harry whispered, and he seemed to be holding his breath, pupils dilated as he watched the movements of Draco’s hands with feverish intensity. 

 

Draco motioned for Harry to move forward, bringing him to rest on the edge of the table with his legs hanging down, Draco’s body in between them so as to reach Potter. Draco ignored the somewhat imitate position, concentrating as he wet Harry’s face with the water. A droplet ran down his neck and Draco followed it hypnotically, before dragging himself back to the task at hand. He, too, held his breath as he lifted his hand to Harry’s face and pulled the blade down. Harry let out a muffled noise, eyes closing at the pressure as Draco repeated the movement, soon falling into a trance with only the sound of the blade and Harry’s quiet whimpers to break the daze. 

 

When it came, it was a shock. Having moved down to Harry’s neck, it was the swallow as blade moved over adam's apple, pulling and nicking the skin, resulting in the bright well of blood under the blade. Draco cursed and Harry’s eyes flashed open, sucking in a breath as he narrowed in on Draco’s finger which he had pressed to the cut without thinking. Time seemed to hang still as Harry studied the drop of blood before looking up to hold Draco’s face in scrutiny. Without breaking his gaze he reached out and took Draco’s wrist in hand, bringing it slowly to his lips before sliding the blood-tipped finger into his mouth and sucking gently. 

 

Draco froze, eyes going wide as Harry let out an appreciative groan, tongue tracing Draco’s fingertip in what seemed an intentional imitation, performed to excite the imagination. Or - in Draco’s case - induce full paralysis, his mind trying to frantically quell the crippling panic that was attempting to seize his body. He wrenched his eyes away from his finger, only to let out an audible gasp as his gaze was drawn downwards, coming to rest on the prominent bulge  tenting the softly worn material of Harry’s pants.  

 

_ “Now, doesn't that make a pretty sight?” Voldemort had taken a step back, hand tracing sinisterly over the ropes that held Draco bound, finger slipping under the taut threads wrapped intimately around his torso. Draco had hung, suspended in mid-air, held by magic and restrained by Incarcerous, the rope chafing his skin and leaving him bleeding.  _

_ “I could not agree more, my Lord.” Lucius had stepped out of the shadowed recess, moving forward to leer at his son, giving Draco a smirk as he dragged his gaze painstakingly slowly across his bare flesh. Draco had kept his eyes downcast, desperately schooling his features into an empty stare. No weakness. No screams. No tears. _

_ “I’ll start with something soft, shall I, Lucius? Before moving on to things a little more fitting?  That way your pathetic excuse for an heir can get to experience my displeasure to its fullest.” Voldemort had paused, fingers caressing the white yew of his wand. “But let us not forget the pleasure, first.” A flick of his wand and the ropes rearranged, retracting from his limbs to come wind noose-like around his neck. Another movement, and Draco’s hands had moved without his permission, body responding under a perfect Imperius to trail his own fingers delicately down his nude form, ghosting over soft flesh with a lovers touch. A groan was wrenched forcibly from his dry throat even as tears attempted to spill their way down flushed cheeks, his mind and body waging a battle for power Draco knew he could not win. _

_ “Such a responsive whore” Voldemort had laughed delightedly. “Such a pretty slut. Does he moan for you like this, Lucius?” he had asked, dragging a keening wail from Draco as one, then two of his fingers were forced up his  tight ass, unable to ignore the pleasure that was being compelled upon him.  _

_ “Yes, my Lord” Lucius had answered, a slight hitch in his breath as he watched Draco’s performance with hungry eyes.  _

_ Voldemort had spun abruptly to face Lucius. “Pardon? I would hate to think you were implying that you are better with your son than I am, Lucius.” _

_ “N-never, my Lord” Lucius had hurried to reply, pulling his gaze away from Draco to meet the Dark Lord’s.  _

_ Voldemort had cut off the Imperius with a flick, Draco’s body slumping with a gasp, his own fingers stilling their attack even as his cock bounced wantonly against his stomach. “That’s what I thought.” Voldemort had  stalked towards Draco, a predatory grin stretched across white chapped lips. “Come, Lucius. Come watch what it’s like to really make our dear Draco scream.” _

_ Cold spidery fingers had wrapped languidly around Draco’s dick, his eyes flashing open in horror as Voldemort had started to move lazily up and down the length, the ever present conniving glint reflecting in red eyes.  _

_ Draco had squirmed, fighting the revulsion, the terror, the repugnancy . The sharp stab of arousal which seared  forbidden through him, carnal desire an unwanted but ungovernable force leaving his mind broken whilst his body ached for release.  _

_ A besmirched desire, a battle for control. Mind versus body in an internalised war of wills. _

_ “The muggles-” Draco had startled, the whispering voice closer to his ear than he had initially realised “-have this delightful device called a Judas Cradle. Do you know what that is, my boy?” _

_ Draco shook his head, fighting arousal. Fighting pleasure. What sort of sick, twisted, deviant was he, for his body to respond, even with Voldemort’s hand wrapped around him? _

_ “A Judas Cradle was one of the few acceptable instruments to come out of muggle society. Think, Draco, of a pyramid-like seat, the triangular-shaped end inserted into the ass your Father craves so much, your feet bound together in a way that moving one would move the other, increasing the pain, perhaps coupled with a Crucio or two. Does that sound like it may be an acceptable way, Draco, for my displeasure at your failures to be made apparent? Surely it cannot be hard, to smuggle a few of my death eaters into your beloved Hogwarts?” _

_ A week after that session of punishment, Draco had succeeded.   _

 

“No!” Draco scrambled back, away from Harry, tripping over the too long hem of his pants in the process. He fell in a jumbled heap on the stone floor, his limbs buckling in the attempt to flee, his head snapping up in sheer panic to watch Harry with obvious fear. 

 

“Draco?” Potter queried, confused by Draco’s sudden outburst. 

 

Draco shook his head wildly, hair flying in a tangle as he tried to right himself, pulling his gaunt frame up only to move further back, his arms coming to wrap protectively around his body. “I just... you need to... no...” Draco knew he was being irrational, Harry was nothing like the monsters who had ripped his body from him, violating it beyond return. Still. To see that reaction from Harry, desire for him, joined with the  _ blood.  _ “I need to go” he whispered, before turning and high tailing it through the door. 

 

He could hear Potter’s shouts as he ran through the house, along corridors and  _ up.  _ Flight after flight of stairs he climbed, higher than he had ventured before, not thinking, simply fleeing, away from Harry and his carnal desire and hard dicks and the twinge Draco had felt just before the memories had surfaced once again, the twinge in his lower gut which reminded him he was nothing more than the dirty whore he had always been told he was. 

 

He was at the top of the house before he realised it. The harshly pitched ceiling left an attic only big enough for a single bed onto which Draco climbed, curling up into a ball with his arms wrapped around his shivering body. 

 

It was just a memory.

 

The thing, though, about memories, was that they had the power to ignite the past, drench up feelings one thought they had long since suppressed. Draco couldn't count the number of times he had wished for death, begged for its sweet release as his body was forced to endure not only punishment with magic, but also the instruments of medieval muggle torture Voldemort seemed to enjoy so much. “You are as low in the food chain as they are, Draco” even now echoed through his head.

 

Death was not always a cruelty, and he had longed for it with an all consuming obsession.

It was also the coward's way out, and it was only this belief that had stilled his hand for all those years. 

 

“ _ Coward’s way out”  _ he recited softly, wishing he could believe it even as the dark lulled him to sleep.

* * *

*

“Wingardium Leviosa” 

 

“Wingardium Leviosa!”

 

“Wingardium  _ fucking  _ Leviosa!” Draco screamed, sweat pouring down his brow, flicking his hand wildly in the direction of where the feather lay, refusing to move. He had initially started with an old boot he had found under the bed, but had to admit defeat when it refused to budge. Now he sat on the single bed in the attic, surrounded by a sea of soft, downy, duck feathers. The outer lining of a pillowcase lay ripped and dejected in the corner, it's once-plump stuffing strewn around the room like the torn out entrails of some exotic beast. One lone feather singled out to sit mockingly in front of Draco.

 

But it was no use.   
  


Ever since waking from the fitful slumber that had followed the...  _ erection incident...  _ he had been trying. Yet he had been unsuccessful. T wandless magic that had come so naturally the other day now refusing to comply, an impenetrable lake which Draco knew if he could just break the surface would flow freely. He felt like a first year again, his magic completely useless to him, its grasp somewhere off in the far distance, too far for him to understand. But it had worked, once, which meant he could do it again. 

 

If he could work his wandless magic, he could leave Harry in peace. 

 

“Wingardium Levi- _ O _ -sa!” Again there was nothing, and the panic, the  _ need,  _ for it to work was overwhelming.

 

“Win- _ gar _ -dium Leviosa!” It had to work. He had to leave.

 

“ _ Fucking _ Wingardium  _ fucking  _ Levio- _ fucking _ -sa!”

 

“That’s not going to work.”

 

“Fuck!” Draco squealed, jumping and managing to almost fall off the bed, concentrating so fully on his magic that he hadn't heard Harry enter the room. He sat back and eyed the man wearily, trying to push the image of Harry's straining cock aside, the way his finger had been sucked, the automatic panic that even now tried to rise in his stomach.

 

“I came to apologise” Harry said softly, not moving out of the doorway, as if he was afraid of how Draco would react. Which wasn't uncalled for, following last night's performance. Potter’s face was still half-shaven. 

 

“You don't need to” Draco answered, voice equally as soft. “It was my fault for reacting how I did.”

 

Potter looked sad, his head held dejectedly to the side. “Is it always going to be like this for us? One step forward and two steps back?” 

 

Draco let out a forced laugh. “Well, it was never going to be easy, was it? Both of us are fucked.”

 

“Do you ever think you’re too broken to fix?” Harry asked quietly.

 

“You can be fixed.” Draco sighed. “I’m not sure my scars can be erased.” 

 

“I don't like seeing you like this” Harry looked away.

 

“I don't remember being anything else.”

 

“I do. Remember you.” Draco stayed silent, studying the pile of feathers around him. “Did you murder a chicken?” Harry tried again, as if he had only just noticed the plumage garnishing the room.

 

“I sacrificed a pillow in the name of wandless magic.”

 

“Was it a dark magic sacrifice, or more Pagan in nature?” Harry queried, and it took Draco a moment to realise he was joking. 

 

Draco let out a small smile. “Bit of both.”

 

Harry stepped into the room further, watching Draco’s reaction carefully. “Are you trying to perform wandless magic again?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the state of the room.

 

“There’s no point. I can't do it.”

 

“You've got to really want it.” Harry studied him intently. “Want it, and mean it. Believe it. In here.” He motioned to his heart. “Channel what you were feeling the other day.”

Draco took a breath.

 

“ _ Wingardium Leviosa _ !” 

  
Nothing.


	8. Chapter Seven

Thin, bony feet.

Thin, bony feet on which two legs sat, pale and undefined, the muscles wasted away to leave child-like spindles. Narrow, gaunt hips, the bones accentuated and prominent, stomach emaciated, pallid and haggard. Anemic skin drawn over protruding cheekbones; concave,  shadowed hollows buried under dead eyes. Hair, lank and ruined, hanging to a jagged mess around an insubstantial neck. 

Two skeletal arms, one patchy with abraded sores, the other a mess of blistered, mutilated disfigurement, the skin ruined beyond repair. The Dark Mark, once a symbol of power, fear, evil, now only a contribution to the patchworked artistry that made up the left forearm. The serpent and skull was now reduced to distorted black lines, an undercurrent that swam menacingly under flesh ravaged by fire. The cloying stench of burning skin only second to the fumes that had oozed sickeningly into nostrils. Muggle acid poured lovingly across a pale arm, its caustic nature peeling back layers of flesh. Flayed and exposed, ending in the...  _ revolting _ mess which Draco now stared at, eyes tracing over the ruined skin in a pattern he could draw in his sleep. 

He hated the sight of himself. He wanted his mother. 

He longed for her with a palpable need. Missed the soft brush of her hand over his hair, the way her voice had always managed to soothe him, even past childhood. 

But he had never been back. 

To go back would be to put his mother in danger. Go against his father's orders, stray back into territory he had so forcefully been banned from. To go back would be to risk life, not only evading the light which sought to punish him, but the dark that lurked, waiting for a chance to end the boy that had turned his back on a life of service. It still stung, the memories of how he had been turned away, not so much from his father, but by the people he had been sure would help him. 

His mother had fled with him back to Malfoy Manor whilst the Battle of Hogwarts had still raged on, which is where they had waited for the return of Husband and Father. How naive they had been. 

“ _ You!” his father had snarled, striding down the entrance hall upon his return. “Come here, boy.” Draco had obliged, giving his mother's hand a reassuring squeeze before coming to stand in front of Lucius. A sharp slap had landed on his cheek and Draco had staggered back, holding a palm to his face. “Pathetic, worthless, cowardly Blood Traitor!” His father had roared, advancing on him. “How dare you abandon our cause, right in the middle of battle? After everything I have done for you? Even after The Dark Lord graced you with his pleasurable touch?” At that, Narcissa had let out a small gasp. “A disgrace, to the Malfoy name, and The Dark Lord. You are no son of mine.” Lucius had turned to Narcissa, and Draco had moved, flinging himself in front of his mother. _

_ “Don't touch her!” he had cried, staring up into a face that so resembled his, yet was twisted with scorn and hatred.  _

_ “And you, my wife” Lucius had said, ignoring his son, voice like ice, “will learn what happens when bitches like you don't follow orders.”  _

His father had disinherited him, cast him from his childhood home, and revoked him from the wards that guarded the Manor. Draco had fled, first to Pansy, where the sight of him on the Parkinson doorstep had been enough to provoke a flurry of curses and hexes, before begging other so-called friends. Eventually he had landed, filthy and desperate, at the Ministry, where he had fallen and begged Auror Shacklebolt for forgiveness. 

None had been given. Why should it, when Draco had been the one to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts to start with? The reason for Dumbledore’s death? The catalyst for the destruction that had soon followed?

He had failed the light, he had failed the dark, and in turn, they had both cast him out. Now, this was all that was left of him.

“Draco? What’s wrong?” Potter asked, startling Draco as he entered the bathroom where Draco stood, staring into the grimy mirror fixed above the sink. 

Draco hesitated before deciding to answer truthfully. Potter seemed set on ignoring the events of the last few days, and both men had been making a conscious effort not to upset the other. “I was just thinking about my mother” he said quietly.

“Where is she?” Harry leant against the sink, the ever-moving thumb tracing imperfect scars. 

“The Manor, I assume. If Father has not disposed of her by now.”

“You don't know if she's alive or dead?” Harry seemed perturbed by this, and Draco once again felt lifted by this broken man, who, despite all that had happened, could still be concerned about an ex-Death Eater’s mother. 

“I have no way to find out, do I? I can’t exactly waltz back home and ask for an audience with her.”

“Why not?”

Draco started at Harry, wondering if he was being purposely cretinous, or if he was just being Harry. For a man who had given up on humanity and himself alike, he still had an alarmingly strong hero complex. “Because I’ve been banned from the wards? Because if I set foot in wizarding London, I'll be slaughtered either by dark sympathisers who still hold a grudge against me for jumping ship, or by the light who still, rightfully so, blame me for the Battle of Hogwarts?” 

“I don't think it's so black and white, anymore” Harry said calmly, as if Draco was overreacting.

“Well, if it's such a fantastic place to be, why are you still hiding?”

“You know why” Harry answer easily. “We’re two different cases.” 

"No. You've simply lost your mind after being a self-imposed hermit for so many years.”

“I think that happened long before I removed myself from the wizarding world.”

Draco smirked. “That’s probably true, Potter. First sane thing you’ve said to me.”

Harry grinned. It was an echo of the expression he had sported at Hogwarts, his eyes flat. But still, it was there. “This is funny, don't you think?”

“The insistence that you're no saviour, yet can't help but want to heal a poor, broken, soul like me?” answered Draco sarcastically. 

“I was going to say the way we’re talking.” Harry’s grin dropped. “Don't confuse me for something I'm not, Draco. I'm no hero. I thought you would have realised that by now.”

“I think you’re closer than you think.”

Potter shook his head. “I’m not having this conversation with you again. Don’t paint me as a fallen angel.” He studied Draco in the intense way he was slowly getting used to. “I think we should find out if your mother is okay.”

“Why do you care, Harry?” Draco huffed, exasperated. “I can’t see her, or help her.”

Harry was grim. “Because if I didn't know whether my mother was dead or alive, I’d want to find out. Because I care about you, and you’re hurting.” His expression softened, and Draco turned away, once again pushing down the feeling that lurked, sinister and unwanted in his gut. “Because I’ve already fallen as far as I can go, and maybe this will count towards redemption.”

“A right paladin, aren't you” Draco retorted snarkily, ignoring Harry’s last words. “So how do you suppose we do this, Potter?” What was there to lose?

“Like this.”

* * *

*

They landed with a jolt  outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, Draco gagging but managing to hold on to his stomach contents, clutching Harry's arm until the spinning sickness disappeared. His breath caught as he glimpsed home through the wrought iron gates, his eyes tracing the familiar outline he hadn't seen for five years. The gates were still the same, rising imposingly before him, but the grounds beyond that seemed less manicured, darker; the normally perfect landscape now beginning its surrender to mother nature's incessant siege. 

The gardens had been his mother’s pride and joy. Their disarray spawned fresh panic in his chest.

“You think she's here?” Harry asked, peering through the gates.

“I don't know. Don't touch those” he reprimed sharply, seeing Harry go to nudge the gates. He was back on guard now, alert to every movement, any perceived threat. That had been one of the more valuable lessons he learnt on the streets. That, and he didn't trust his father.

“So. How do we get in?” Harry looked at him expectantly.

Draco gritted his teeth, his futility turning to anger, ready to lash out at the closest person. “I don't know, Harry. This was your fucking idea!”

“You said your father banned you from the wards, right? As well as disinheriting you?” 

“Yes, Potter. Why?” Draco tried to reel his emotions in. It wasn't Harry's fault. 

“I wonder...” Harry stepped closer to the gates, hands tracing, but not quite touching the ornate metal. A shirt sleeve rode up, and Draco glimpsed the scars that traversed his arm in their full glory once again. Beautiful, hauntingly so, in the way that their beauty symbolised survival, each laborious gouge and cut counting the days that Harry had chosen to remain alive, to fight. Draco felt a profound gratification for the wounds lining Harry’s arms; their absence would have surely signified death by this point. He fought the urge to play homage to them with his tongue. “I have an idea.” The sound of Harry’s voice drew him from his illicit daydreams, and he chastened himself. “Blood.”

“Blood is always your idea. Slitting your wrists isn't going to get you inside the grounds, unfortunately. Not this time.” 

“No. But yours might.” Harry had no need to sound so... pleased with his ridiculous idea.

Draco crossed his arms, unsure why he was even humouring Potter. “Care to explain?”

“Blood. Your father may have disinherited you, but you're still a Malfoy. I’m wondering if the gates would open if a blood offering was given. Ancient magic is often tied to blood, and wouldn't necessarily follow the laws of today.”

Draco stared at him. “That- that might actually work.” It was easy to forget that the man before him was the slayer of Voldemort, for as obtuse as he sometimes seemed, Harry was quietly brilliant. When he was sane. “Do you have anything? To make the cut with?”

Harry shook his head, brow furrowed, before stooping down to pick something up off the path. “Here. It’s not going to leave a pretty scar though.” He held up a small rock, one end tapering off to create a blunt tip.

“None of mine are” Draco said grimly, staring at the tool in Harry’s hands apprehensively. As versed as he had become with pain, he still had trouble purposely inflicting it on himself.

“Give me your palm.” Harry's voice held an odd tone. He took Draco’s hand gently, turning it up so that the palm faced the sky, green eyes briefly meeting grey. He stared at the pale skin as if memorising its contours, before grimly dragging a long gorge down the palm, A to B.

“Fuck, that hurts” Draco moaned, but Harry didn't answer. He was watching the blood well over the cut intensely, faced pinched as if he was the one in pain. “Potter?” 

“You don't know how hard that was to do” Harry murmured quietly, still holding Draco’s hand lightly.

Draco swallowed. “I think I do.” Once again, green eyes locked on grey, and all Draco wanted to do was run. Run, and hide, evading and shunning the awareness that danced menacingly through his body, its threatening tendrils coiling around his psyche until he was a slave to its whim. 

Oh, fuck. His body wanted Harry. 

Ached for him in a way Draco hadn't felt since school; a desire that flushed his being with need. 

But his mind shunned the knowledge with recrementitious force, shuddering at the thought of letting Harry...  _ touch  _ him. See him. Feel him. No. He couldn't do it. Couldn't override the fear and revulsion in his mind, nor allow Potter to see it, or glimpse the quick flash of desire. He wrenched his hand away from Harry’s hold, pressing it firmly to the gates in an attempt to ignore the revelation that had just been acknowledged. 

Draco knew how to live in denial; how to play pretend. 

After what seemed like an age, the gates started to pull inwards, opening themselves in a regality befitting of their position. 

“It worked” Draco whispered, letting out the breath he wasn't aware he had been holding, and gingerly stepped forward until he was standing within the boundaries of the Manor. He looked back at Harry, letting a grin overtake his face, and Harry smiled back, Draco’s joy contagious. Pausing, he looked around. “It's quiet.” A frown deepened his face. “Too quiet. Harry, what do you see?” 

Harry looked at him confused. “A house. A pathway. Gardens?” 

“What don't you see?”

“What do you mean?”

Draco shook his head. “Maybe you wouldn't notice it, never having really been here. Life, Harry. The grounds used to be full of life. My mother prided herself on the birds that lived here, even the fucking peacocks I hated. Now, it's dead. There's nothing. Do you sense it? It feels lifeless. Abandoned.” He said the last part with tangible worry. 

“Shall I hold your hand to keep you safe?” Draco ignored Potter, too wrapped up in apprehension to appreciate Harry's attempt at making him laugh. 

“Come on. Let's move. I don't like this.” The walk up the path seemed to stretch on, gravel crunching under foot the only sound to disturb the eerie silence. Shadows seemed to reach formidably for them, their aphotic depths promising sinister surprises for those who wandered near. 

“Did it always feel this ominous?” Harry asked in a whisper, and Draco shook his head slightly, holding a finger to his lips. 

He was a fool to have come here. A suicide mission, and he was going to drag Harry down with him. 

They mounted the steps to the front porch with trepidation, Draco’s hand stilling on the door handle. 

“Do it. I’m here. I won't let anything happen to you.” Brave, empty words, from a brave, empty man.  

He opened the door. 

The entrance hall stretched out before them, its cavernous space echoing the sound as Harry closed the door quietly behind him. Draco paused, hungrily drinking in the sight he thought he would never see again.

Without warning, a door to their right opened, and out stepped Narcissa.

Time seemed to stand still as her gaze fell upon her son. “Draco?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Mother?”

One breath, two. Three, before the opening of the flood gates. 

“Mother!” Draco threw himself at Narcissa, catching his arms around her neck and pulling her close, breathing in her unique scent which would forever correlate to ‘home’ in his head. 

“My Draco, my precious Dràkon. Draco, Draco, Draco” his mother cooed into his ear, her own arms wrapping around his body to hold him tightly to her thin frame. They stayed like that for a long moment, locked in a fierce embrace, the bond between mother and son an irrepressible and ceaseless force. It was only when Narcissa pulled back to regain her composure did she seemingly notice Harry. “Mr Potter.” Her voice was instantly  cool, not betraying any of the emotion she had just displayed. 

Harry squirmed under her cold gaze. “Narcissa. Mrs Malfoy.” 

She gave him level look. “That is an interesting style of facial hair you have chosen, Mr Potter.” 

Draco let out a manic snort, having forgotten about the demi-beard Harry was still sporting. Narcissa went rigid at the sound, eyes flicking to a door down the hall before landing back on her son. “Draco” she whispered, and there was fear in her voice this time. “Why are you here? Do you not know what Lucius will do to you if he finds you?”

“I didn't even know if you were alive, mother.” Draco dropped his eyes. “I missed you.”

Narcissa’s features softened momentarily. “And I you, my Dràkon. But it's not safe for you to be here. Especially with Harry Potter.” She looked at Harry. “Who, may I say, we are all very surprised to see alive. You’ve been absent for a long time, Mr Potter. People like my husband are thriving in that absence.”

“If it wasn't for Harry, I'd still be on the streets selling my ass to survive” bit Draco. The joy of seeing his mother alive and healthy was being replaced with bitterness. “You didn't try to find me once? Help me? Five years, Mother. Five years I have worried about you, convinced Father was torturing you in some way.”

“Your Father thinks you're dead” Narcissa stated plainly. “Neither hide nor hair has been seen of you for a long time. I think you would prefer for him to stay under that illusion, don't you? Time has not softened him, Draco. In fact, if anything, it has made him harder.”

“Why haven't you left, mother? You would choose him over me? You  _ knew  _ what he was doing to me!”

“Draco!” It was the first time Narcissa had raised her voice, and let out a small gasp straight after, eyes looking around wildly. “It was never easy with Lucius.” Her voice dropped. “If I could leave here, and not face any repercussions, I would. You have got to know that I would have  _ never  _ let him do the things he did, if I had known. You're my only son. I would do anything for you.” 

At that moment, there was small pop, and a house elf appeared in front of Narcissa. “Missus Malfoy, Master Lucius Sir would be liking you in the dungeons now.” The small creature then turned and let out a squeak, spotting Harry and Draco. “Master Draco! Master Draco has returned! And Mister Harry Potter Sir. Mister Harry Potter should not be in Malfoy Manor!”

“You will not tell my husband that Draco or Harry Potter are here.” Narcissa’s voice was firm. “Do you understand, Bilbo? He must not know.” The small elf nodded, its ears hitting the ground. “Now, please tell me what Lucius said.”

“Master Malfoy be saying he needs Missus Narcissa in the dungeons at once. Master Malfoy has been a very angry man, and needs his messes cleaned up.” The small elf frowned. “Bilbo said Master Malfoy that Bilbo will be cleaning up the girl, but Master Malfoy said he be wanting Missus Narcissa.”

Narcissa’s already pale face blanched. “That will be all, Bilbo. Thank you. Please remember, not a word to Lucius. You are dismissed.” The elf bowed deeply, before disappearing. 

“Mother?” Draco’s voice was strained. “What did Bilbo mean by ‘the girl’?”

“I’m afraid, Draco, that your Father’s taste of violence and... se _ xual desires-”  _ her mouth twisted around the words “-has not lessened in the years you have been gone. I'm afraid that his latest toy has met an unfortunate end.” She looked once again at the door way. “You need to leave, my darling boy. Leave, and don't return. Forget about me. My fate has been chosen.” She placed a small kiss on Draco’s forehead. 

“I'm not leaving you here with that bastard!”

Narcissa placed her hands on Draco’s shoulders, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his. “Unfortunately, that’s the way it must be, Draco. I’m not prepared to put you in any more danger.”

“What’s so bad that you can't leave, Mother? What hold does he have on you?” Draco was shaking, fear for his mother, as well as his grief of leaving her so soon mixed deadly in his gut, heaving bile up his throat and making his hands shake. 

“Nothing that you need to worry about, Draco. Now. Go.”

“I can't Mother.” Tears spilled from Draco, and he clutched her hand. “I can't do it again without you. I accept everything that I've done, I’ve payed for my wrongs, time and time again. Look, Mother!” He yanked up his tattered shirt sleeve, revealing his ruined Dark Mark, and Narcissa let out a quiet sob. “I've been burnt. Used. Voldemort's play toy, and a whore for Muggles. I’ve starved, and froze, and wished for death. I can't do it any more, Mother. I can't be alone.”

Narcissa looked at Harry, her own demeanor held together by a single thread. “You’re not alone, Draco. Not anymore.”

Harry had been silent for their exchange, but now he met Narcissa’s gaze. “We will be back” he said, and there was promise in his voice, fire and hatred for a man who had ruined so many, burning in his eyes. “Draco won't be alone.” he looked at Draco, who was slowly falling apart in the entrance hall. “You won't be alone again.”

“Thank you. For looking after my boy.” Narcissa’s voice was soft, choked,  laden with unshed grief. 

Harry gave her a small smile before grabbing Draco's hand and forcibly dragging him towards the door. He opened it, and pushed a zombie-like Draco through. “I think you would find, Mrs Malfoy, that it's Draco who looks after me” he said quietly, before turning and shutting the door, leaving Narcissa standing there, mourning for a boy she once had, and the broken man he had become. 


	9. Chapter Eight

“ _That’s it my Dràkon, my clever little boy. Now, one more time for Mummy?”_

  
His body trembled, hands clenched in a futile attempt to control the storm of emotions threatening to seize his body.  
  
“ _What’s wrong, darling?”_  
_“Nothing, Mother.”_  
_“Are you sure, Draco? I know your Father can be a little harsh. Would a story make my big six year old feel better? It’s about a very special wizard_ .”  
  
A tear escaped, breaching the rim of his eye before slowly tracking down his pale cheek.  
  
“ _You mustn't worry, my darling Dràkon. You are very important to me, and I know you are going to be very important to someone else in the future. It doesn't matter if that person is a male or a female. Eleven is no age to be thinking about these things.”_  
_“Do you mean that, Mother?”_  
_“With all my heart_ .”  
  
A choked sob ripped forth from his tightly clamped lips, body lurching with the movement.  
  
“ _Y_ _ou don’t need to do this, Draco.”_  
_“Mother, I have to. You do not say no to the Dark Lord. It’s a privilege. An honour.”_  
_“You do not have to do anything. Listen to me. I will support you with whatever you choose. I love you, my Dràkon. Never forget that.”_  
  
A wretched wail pierced the oppressive silence, the noise echoing through the still house. Instantly, there were hands on him, calming, soothing, reassuring. But they were the wrong hands, callused and masculine, not the soft smooth touch he craved, the ones that had held him night after night, cleaned his wounds, comforted his mind and body. He let out another sob, and suddenly he was crying in earnest, his body rocking and shaking and heaving in a way it hadn't since he was a child, nose running and tears streaming down reddening cheeks, letting the futility, his worthlessness, enclose him.  
  
“Draco, please. I don’t know what to do for you.”  
  
The hands on him moved, one rubbing soft circles on his back, the other cupping his knee.    
  
“Let me help you. Please. Let me take the pain away.”  
  
“You can't. No one can.” The first words Draco had spoken since Harry had pulled his malfunctioning body down the Manor path, apparating them back to Grimmauld Place.  
  
Harry moved, and abruptly Draco was pulled into a soft lap, Harry’s arms winding around him to hold him tight against his chest. Draco stiffened briefly before yielding to the embrace, his head coming to nestle in the warm crook of Harry’s shoulder while he was rocked as one might an upset baby. He breathed in the now-familiar scent of Harry, letting the heat which permeated the worn cotton of Potter’s shirt soothe him and dry his tears.  
  
“Narcissa was right, Draco, when she said you weren't alone. I promise, we will do something about her situation. We just need some time.” Harry’s voice was gentle, muffled against his hair.  
  
“He has a hold on her. He won’t let her go.”  
  
“We will make him.”  
  
Draco let out a strangled laugh. “You think I can beat my father? With no wand? He’s ruthless, Harry. He doesn't give a shit, and doesn't play by anyone's rules.”  
  
“I won’t let you confront him alone.”  
  
“It’s not your battle to fight. He’s not your problem.”

Harry’s tone turned dark. “He is. I didn’t fight a fucking war just to let people like him get away with what he’s doing.”  
  
“You said it yourself. Death Eaters still roam free. He’s not the only one, far from it. Nothing will ever change, Harry. As long as there’s good, there will be bad in the world.”  
  
“There isn't anyone good left. That’s what the war achieved; the destruction of anyone pure. They shouldn't have died in vain.”  
  
Draco pulled his head away from Harry’s shoulder, leaning back so he could study his face. “Isn't this why you left? What you ran from?”  
  
Harry’s gaze flicked down to his wrists. “It is. But I’d go back. For you.” Draco said nothing, shifting awkwardly in Potter’s lap. “How many are there?”  
  
“Of what?” Draco asked, confused.  
  
“Death Eaters. How many are still free?”  
  
“Oh.” Draco paused, debating whether or not he should answer truthfully. “A fair few.”  
  
“How do you know?” It was Draco’s eyes that gave him away, instinctively moving to rest on his covered arm, only momentarily, before looking away. Yet Harry saw the movement, and Draco watched comprehension dawn on his face. “Your mark.” It wasn't a question.  
  
Draco’s voice was quiet. “Yes.”  
  
“What did they do?” Gritted out, between clenched teeth.  
  
“It doesn't matter” Draco hurried, placating.  
  
“It fucking does. Tell me, Draco.”  
  
“I already fucking have!” He shouted, pulling himself off and away from Harry, moving to stare out a grimy window. “I already have.”  
  
“Acid” Harry stated, and Draco was surprised he remembered that conversation, considering the events that had followed. The cutting.  
  
It felt like a lifetime ago.  
  
“What's done is done. I can't change the past; I haven't got a time-turner. And anyway, most would say I deserved it, what I got. They certainly did.”  
  
“What happened?” Traces of the burning man were back.  
  
“What if I don't want to tell you, Harry?” All of a sudden Draco was tired, his body weighted down as if tied to rocks, and all he wished to do was sink under the water to oblivion. “What if I don't want to relive the past? You can't compensate for me; repent for me with your blood. I'm not one of your lives to pay for.”  
  
Harry simply sat there, those eyes of his piercing even in the low light, a hypnotic force willing Draco to obey.  
  
“It was after Father had cast me out. I was moving from shelter to shelter in muggle London” Draco relented with a sigh. “I had pissed off the wrong sorts - the muggle gangs that ran the streets - so I couldn't stay in the same place for long. The night they came, I had just found a new shelter.” A sad smile crossed his face. “They had soup to eat, and I remember thinking I hadn't eaten anything that delicious, ever. Hunger will do that to you.”  
  
“I know the feeling” Harry commented blandly, before waiting for Draco to continue.  
  
“It was sudden. One minute, I was in the bathroom, then a hand grabbed me, and I was gone.” He shuddered, the memory of that night fresh in his mind as if it had just happened. He remembered the smells, the aroma of food mixed with the slight stink of unwashed bodies, and how it had suddenly changed, replaced with the earthy odour of wet ground, the musty decay of rotting wood. How he had frozen when he had spied the human outlines hidden in deep shadows, and the all-consuming fear when their identities were revealed. “They weren't very happy with me. Abandoning the cause, and all that.”  
  
“I need names.”  
  
“You don't. Dolohov, Rookwood, Mulciber Jr, and Rabastan Lestrange” he amended, seeing Harry about to argue. “It doesn't matter. Four angry men with twisted ideologies and no leader to follow. I was the easiest person to blame. Dolohov took appropriate delight in defiling the Dark Lord’s sex toy. I assure you, it was quite the honour.” Draco screwed his face up, fighting the instinctual bile which wanted to rise in his throat. “They harped on and on about how I wasn't ‘deserving’ of the Dark Lord, or his mark, how I was a ‘turn coat’, a ‘spineless traitor’. But honestly, I think they were just bored.” He worked to keep his face natural, his tone even, despite the abhorrence seething through him.  
  
He sensed, rather than saw, Harry stand. A hand was placed cautiously on his arm, but he shrugged it off. If it had stayed, he would have broken.  
  
Harry didn't need to see the pain.  
  
“Long story short, they decided that I wasn't entitled to the mark. Their solution was acid. Humorous, really, that muggle haters would stoop to something so muggle. Perhaps it was an analogy for what I had become.” He paused. “Have you ever seen human flesh disintegrate? Smelled the astringent stench that emerges as you’re forced to watch skin and fat, muscle, sinew, be devoured by such a formidable foe? Have you ever _fucking_ had to suppress your screams, even as your flesh liquefies before your eyes, because to scream would be to lose, and would give the _sadistic_ fucks too much pleasure!” The outrage had crept up on him slowly, but now it burned bright and hot, a force which ran parallel with his hatred. Hatred at Harry, for making him relive the pain. Hatred that the man he had fought to hate since a child, was now the man his body longed to touch. Hatred that, even now, he felt helpless.  
  
His voice broke. “And then, to feel so desperate, so alone, so sickened by your own mutilated arm, which, despite their best efforts, still bears the mark, that you douse it with gas and light it on fire. You embrace the pain, the sweet stink of burning, because it means that it's _doing_ something, rebelling against the brands that mark you, that which defines you.  
  
Harry looked like he might be sick, his face pale, his normally vibrant eyes dulled. Long moments passed, the stillness only punctured by the sound of a dripping tap off in the distance. Finally, Harry spoke.  
  
“It’s my fault.”  
  
“How is it possibly your fault, Harry” Draco bit out. “Did you leave me wandless? Did you disinherit me? Oh, wait. Let me guess. You were Polyjuiced, and impersonating Dolohov. In that case, was the sex good?” Sarcasm dripped from his tone.  
  
Harry shuffled awkwardly, his feet sweeping dust arches back and forth across the marred floor. “What happened to your wand?” he asked eventually.  
  
Draco looked at him strangely. “Well, you _stole_ it, when you decided to bust out of the Manor. Then, my father refused to get another, and once he had disinherited me, I didn't have the means to replace it.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Potter sounded earnest.  
  
“I don't blame you, not any more.” Draco's voice dropped. “If you hadn't escaped. Well... I’m not sure what kind of place we would be living in now. You did what you had to do. Can you just tell me-” He pulled in a ragged sigh. “-You obviously don't have it now. What did you do with it? In the end?”  
  
Harry stilled. “I can’t remember, Draco” he said, woodenly. “I guess it got lost in battle.”  
  
“Okay. I just wanted to know.” His anger from before had faded, giving way to sadness.

Potter suddenly exploded. “I can't believe I let that happen!”  
  
“My wand?” asked Draco, confused.  
  
“Your fucking arm!”  
  
“Seriously, Harry. What does it even have to do with you?” He was over the fighting.  
  
“Everything. It's on me. I should have just thrown acid at you myself! If I had done what I was bloody meant to do, there wouldn't have been any Death Eaters left to torture you. I might as well start cutting for you, Draco. Yours is another life I should have been able to save.”  
  
“Well I'm still fucking here! I survived, didn't I! Not everything is your fault. You don't need to pay for all these fucking wrong doings, because you didn't do them!” Why couldn't harry see? That he was good, honest, that he had fought enough. That he was so much better than Draco could ever be.  
  
“Look at what that survival cost you. And I don't mean the whoring. You lost your wand, your life. Everything that you had even known has been stripped from you. Yet you're standing here telling me that I didn't do wrong?”  
  
The words left his mouth unbidden. “I would rather be here with you, Harry, than living in a world you refuse to inhabit.”  
  
Harry jolted, before turning to face him. “Draco?” he softly queried, taking a tentative step forward.  
  
“I. I...” He hadn't meant to say that. But that didn't make it any less real.  
  
“Draco.” Harry's voice had changed, the name coming out husky, warm. Needy. Lust now burned hot across his features, intertwined with something else, flanked by something equally primordial. “Draco” he said, and it was almost a purr. “Cut me.”  
  
Draco flinched, looking away. Looking away, because he couldn't possibly look harry in the eye, couldn't stand to see what was burning behind the green.  
  
“Draco” Harry took another calculated step toward him. “Cut me. Scar me. Bleed me. Make. Me. Bleed.” Each word was accentuated, words that had been spoken before now taking on a new meaning. It wasn't desperation this time that fuelled the need to cut. Or it was, but a different sort of desperation, a game to be played, the pain Draco gave taking on a sweet edge, the blood not a redemption, but a medium to explore.  
  
A promise that it wouldn't just be Harry’s needs sated.  
  
A promise that set Draco’s body alight.  
  
A promise that Draco could never see fulfilled.  
  
“Harry” Draco whispered, and it was meant as a warning. Yet his body betrayed him, and it came out as more of a moan.  
  
“I know you want it” Harry stepped forward, bringing them close, _too close_ . “I can see it, know you feel it. Don't you want to feel alive again? Just for one moment in time?”  
  
“I can't.” Draco's voice trembled, and he felt like he was about to plummet. Standing on the edge of the void, his mind screamed to run, to turn, to pull back. But his body... all his body wanted to do was step off, and embrace the free fall.  
  
“I’ve been falling for a long time, Draco” Harry murmured, an unintentional mimicry of his own personal dilemma. “But I think you can catch me.”  
  
Harry paused. Leant forward. Green to grey; it had always been green to grey, even when it shouldn't have been. Breath hot, lips stilled millimetres from his.  
  
Until they weren't, and the gap was closed.  
  
One beat. Two, three.  
  
_Fight or flight_ ? He thought of Harry, of the lust in his eyes, and the other emotion, the one filled with promise, and trust, which Draco now understood as Harry’s own fucked up version of _love_ .  
  
Flight.  
  
Harry pulled back, a smile on his face, and Draco ran.  
  
Out the door and down the steps, stilling for only a second in the kitchen before lunging down the hall for the front door. He could hear his name being shouted, Harry’s yells as he followed him through the house. But Draco was faster; he knew how to flee.  
  
Through the front door and up the path, down the road - _any road_ \- running, only running, tears falling unbidden as he wove his way through unfamiliar streets, the sound of Harry long lost behind him, now only his own fear and self-loathing and _cowardliness_ sustaining his desertion.  
  
Darkness was hot on his heels, not only the ending of the day, but the _nothingness_ that Draco knew would overcome him as soon as he stopped.  
  
He had failed the light, he had failed the dark. And now, he had failed Harry Potter.  
  
There’s comfort in familiarity. It was this familiarly that called to him, when seconds or minutes or hours later, his home - his sanctuary - appeared before him. His hideaway under the overpass, blankets ratty, threadbare, grimy but _there_ . Slumping down, he curled his shaking form into a ball, arms wound tightly around his body, and shut his eyes.  
  
One. Two, three.  
  
_Harry_ .  
  
Before nothing.

* * *

*

  
You tasted like home. Comfort. Peace.  
  
For a paramount moment, everything was right.  
  
One. Two, three.  
  
Before you were gone.  
  
You ripped yourself away from me, denied my arms your embrace, lacerated the feeling. The feeling, that had grown between us, a ferocious need which I welcomed with potent relief. So used to the insidious humdrum my life had become, that I hadn't realised you were missing, until you were there.  
  
And now you weren't.  
  
To know, that it was me that pushed you away, with my obstinate need to be with you. On you. Under you. In you. And with you, in a way I had never been before. The physical longing insignificant compared to the complete perfectness my soul felt when you stood before me, courageous, and giving, and honest, and so quintessentially fundamental in my life, I didn't know how I had survived without you.  
  
I wouldn't live through that again.  
  
My fault. It was all my fault.  
  
I'm in your room; on your bed, and it smells of you, wrapping me in an embrace which, if I close my eyes, lets me pretend you're here with me. A stolen, forbidden moment, that's all I got, when my lips met yours.  
  
But I dream about more. You; your body. How your pale skin would blush, pink and warm, under my hands. What you would look like, spread under me, your knees drawn up and exposing every beautiful inch of you. The hypnotising sight of my cock, slowly easing into your tight heat. Since I saw you in the shower, you had been all I could think about.  
  
You made me feel whole. So broken I was, scarred and marked, using liquor as a crutch to get me through the minutes till I could cut again. The satisfaction that control gave me was nothing compared to the intoxicating awareness you spawned. You pulled back the shutters; blew the dust off my decaying eyes. Now, that's gone.  
  
It seems fitting to spend my final time in the space that you had hesitantly claimed as your own. I would have given you the world, moved stars, _gone back_ , for you. Still would. But you've gone, and the dark that had receded temporarily in your presence is back, its ever demanding hunger even more irresistible, the compulsion to cut, to bleed, a seductive temptress.  
  
A piece of glass on the bedside table catches my eye. It's the one you first cut me with, the shard of mirror. It's a sign.  
  
Blankness settles, and although I know it's the last time I’ll be doing this, you're here with me in spirit, and it gives me strength.  
  
Down, not across: a mantra.  
  
Down, not across: an instruction.  
  
Down, not across, and the skin tears easily under the sharp edge. The other wrist, and now the blood is flowing, running in free-form rivers down my palms, twisting between my fingers.  
  
Lying here, in your bed, the place that you have been, it's a fitting end to our tumultuous tryst.  
  
_Draco_ .  
  
The darkness is creeping, and this oblivion promises to taste the sweetest.  
  
_Draco_ .  
  
I'm going now. All I wanted in the end was you.  
  
_Draco_ .  
  
I’m sorry. Forgive me.  
  
I love you.  
  
_Ring-a- ring o’ roses_  
_A pocket full of posies_  
_One slit_  
_Two slit_  
_We all fall down_


	10. Chapter Nine.

The passing of time meant little when one had nothing left to live for. 

Or that’s what it felt like, to Draco. 

When he had given up the one thing that brought him joy, how was he supposed to carry on? Find the will to get up, go out, survive? Bend over, get on his knees, be the whore he had to be, when every touch would feel like a betrayal? Every face a reminder of what he had given up?

One moment of insanity. One moment of insanity, and he had thrown away the only good thing in his pitiful excuse for an existence. Lost the person who had barged his way into Draco’s life, thrown back the shutters, and forced him to feel again. 

It had been a mistake to leave. He had known that as soon as he had woken to the harsh light of day and felt the course rub of a tatty blanket on his skin. It wasn't the situation he now found himself in once again. He could survive on the streets; he had done it before. No. It was waking up and feeling the absence he hadn't known had been temporarily filled. It was waking up and realising that he was once again alone in the world, that it wouldn't make a difference in anyone's life if he lived or died. 

It was waking up with an aching hole in his gut, and knowing that he had run from the person he loved. 

Harry.

It was only now that he let himself think of what he had lost. The night had been filled with a comforting emptiness, his mind unwilling or unable to form a coherent thought. Now, with the cold air biting against his skin, and his breath misting in front of him, he was forced to admit he had been more than a fool. He had been a coward, weak and spineless, letting the past rule his here and now, throwing Harry’s feelings in his face with no regard to the harm it might cause. He hated to think of what Harry thought of him now. Harry, who had dared to believe that they could be more than the circumstances they were dealt. Harry, who had looked at him and seen not the person he had been, but the one who was slowly healing. 

Draco knew he shouldn't go back. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't have welcomed Harry on his doorstep. Yet the hurt in his gut was a growing ache, a compelling motive urging him to return. He had been too gutless to face Harry’s love. The question now, was if he was brave enough to withstand his animosity.

The risk of going back outweighed the misery of staying away. His choice was made. He just hoped that he could keep his own panic at bay.

Finding his way home, though, was another problem.

He hadn't paid attention last night as he had fled, compelled by an unstoppable need and embraced by numbness. Now, faced by the whole of London and no clue where to start, he felt hopeless. Pulling himself off the hard ground, he surveyed the place which had been his home for longer than he cared to remember. There was comfort in familiarity, and although his sanctuary happened to be situated under a noisy overpass, consisted of only a few ratty blankets, there was no denying that it had been his one saving solace in a life of violence and sexual abuse.

Still. If he had it his way, he wouldn't be back. 

Throwing one last glance at his humble abode he set out, face to the sun, relishing the feel of winter heat on his skin and the sense of newness which filled his body. He had his life, he had his love, and he had nothing to lose.

Or so he thought.

As the minutes melted into hours and the shadows lengthened on the sidewalk, his optimism slowly faded. Futility set in, and he pulled Regulus’ too-large clothing tighter around his frail frame, his body falling into a daze as he concentrated simply on putting one foot in front of the other. His eyes stung from the wind that had picked up, and his fingers were numb from the cold. With each step his confidence faded, doubt and apprehension seeping into his head.

He was stupid for going back. A fool for believing Harry would listen to his pathetic apologies and declarations of a love he hardly dared voice out loud. He had misread the situation, and as he walked, Harry was out finding another obedient slut to cut his body and revel in his blood. He was worthless, and would never be more than the good for nothing whore his father had conditioned him to be.

It was hopeless. A senseless endeavour. He recognised that fence.

He stumbled in shock, eyes fixing on the rusting iron railing that led to Harry’s front door. Part of him didn't believe it, and part wanted to laughed hysterically at his luck. The door stood unassuming against the drab brick building, yet Draco felt a surge in his chest. Still, he hesitated at the top of the path, eagerness warring in his stomach against the growing conviction that to knock on the door would be to sign his death warrant. 

How long had it been since he had fled down that path? How long had it been since he had stood, green to grey, and decided that he couldn't do it?

In the end, Draco couldn't help himself. He had never had much control, when it came to Harry Potter. Why cease a habit of a lifetime?

It was only as he raised his hand to knock that he noticed the door was open.

Just a notch, as if it hadn't latched quite right and the wind had pushed it. 

Just a notch, as if someone had absconded in the middle of the night.

Just a notch, yet it set Draco’s stomach on edge.

“Harry?” he called hesitantly as he stepped into the darkened entrance way, closing the door softly behind him. When no answer came he crept down the hall to the kitchen, feeling like an illicit intruder, pausing in the doorway as his eyes swept across the empty room. It was as it had always been. Bottles still lined the counter tops; shattered fragments of mirror glittered on the stone floor. The solid oak bench stood in the centre of the room, a dominant, imposing presence, the blood stains trophies of battles overcome. 

It was completely silent.

Attempting to quell the rising panic, he moved, across the stone floor, down another hall to the sitting room which still managed to portray an air of regality despite the dust that lined the bookshelves and dulled the settee cushions. It too sat empty, and fear curled in his gut.

_ Harry  _ he thought desperately, blankly staring at a loveseat.  _ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Where are you?  _

Every room Draco checked was empty, and with each room he slipped further and further back to the reassuring nothingness he had sworn to banish, his skin cold and clammy despite the death slowly creeping back into his eyes. Was this what it had felt like to Harry? After Draco had fled? Lifeless. Emotionless. Less. 

Was this how Harry had felt after the war? Was this the numbness he fought against with every cut, every slice, every slit of his skin? If so, he couldn't blame him. Judge him. Death would be more merciful, than this suffocating blankness. 

Desperation made man do insane things. Perhaps that was why Draco found himself, minutes later, ardently tracing the gold  _ Sirius _ on the outside of Harry’s door. Perhaps that was why he was climbing into the bed and wrapping his shaking body in blankets that smelled like Harry. He found that the scent he thought would be comforting only succeeded in fueling the ache in his chest, a sadistic reminder of what he would never have again. Perhaps that was why, when lifeless eyes fell on the blade, that tiny,  _ insignificant  _ blade, and stayed there, he didn't stop himself.

Perhaps that was why, when he finally closed his eyes and pulled it across his wrist in a flash of anger, deep,  _ too deep _ , he was surprised that it hurt. 

Where Harry had found peace, Draco found pain. He cried out, the steel falling from his fingertips, confused and shocked and so desperately  _ disappointed  _ that it hadn't worked; hadn't brought Harry back to him, hadn't made him feel like he was there. Where Harry had found redemption, Draco found abhorrence, the sight of red against pale flesh sending him heaving over the slowly staining sheets, and hating himself even more. 

Useless. It was useless, he was useless. Harry had run, yet, unlike Draco, he wasn't coming back. He was gone, and no imitation of Harry’s cuts was going to bring him back. 

He didn't know how long he sat, frozen on Harry’s bed. Long enough that the blood congealed and the cut stopped bleeding. Long enough, that the last rays of sun were replaced by the white light of the moon which fell through the window and across Draco’s lifeless form. 

Long enough, that when his mind finally identified a sound coming from somewhere in the house, his limbs protested as he gingerly unfolded them. 

It was the sink. The trees. A cat. A goat in the living room. A unicorn in the hall. It was all of the above, yet Draco knew it wasn't. It was the slightest of whimpers, a disturbance in the frigid, still air. An intake of breath, a hitch of pain. 

It was panic, flinging him out of bed and into the hall. Hope warring with terror as he ran toward the one room in the house he hadn't checked, hadn't wanted to, but now wished he had.

It was the gut wrenching, harrowing pain that seared his body as he shoved open his old door and saw  _ him. _

Harry lay broken and bleeding on Draco’s bed, his arms flung out beside him in some bizarre sacrificial imitation. Dried blood tracks stained his wrists and hands, coming to pool in a darkened mess on the sheets, palms upturned. Two deep cuts, unnervingly identical, ran gruesomely across each wrists, the abused flesh swollen and red. His normally tanned skin had dulled to an ashen white, his lips a mottled purple, eyes shadowed and sunken. 

He looked like a fallen angel, cocooned in a bed of white. Hauntingly ethereal, an intangible, impalpable deity, mangled and shattered. Beauty in the broken; a repulsive, compelling artistry. 

Only the hitched rise and fall of his breath signaled that Harry was still alive, the sounds that had drawn Draco to him now ceased. He suspected that it was only the sheer will and power of Harry’s magic that compelled the weak flicker of life; the deep cuts carved into each wrist should have meant a fast death. For not the first time in his life, he was eternally grateful that Harry was  _ Harry -  _ that the absolute gross power of his magic was enough to keep him teetering on the brink of death, an omnipotent, overwhelming force. 

Grateful, awed, and watching the person he loved dying before his eyes.

It wasn't until some automatic response had him dropping to his knees beside Harry that Draco realised he was crying, torn, broken sobs raking through his body as his thumbs shakily traced over each cut, searching for the infinitesimal pulse that promised Draco he still had time. He didn't think about what he was doing, didn’t acknowledge that it was most certainly a futile endeavour. His hands curled protectively over each ruined wrist, and all he could think about was  _ not now, not Harry, not the man he loved. _

Swallowing, he willed his magic to his hands. Panic, and desperation; frenzied hysteria, terror and fear, all mingling and strengthening with the absolute, all-consuming knowledge that he wouldnt,  _ couldnt _ , let Harry die. Tears tracked down his cheeks and gathered along the edge of his jaw, falling intermittently onto Harry’s bloodless skin. He didn't know how long he knelt there, funnelling every molecule of magic into Harry, but his chest was wet from salty tears, and Draco’s body was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

So much, but he was terrified it wouldn't be enough.   

His body was shutting down, shaking in the effort to keep going, to keep  _ pushing _ , hands clenched over cuts the only insubstantial thread tethering him.

“Harry...” Draco’s head drooped, and he pressed his wet cheek to Harry’s chest, his eyes fluttering closed. “I’m sorry” he mouthed weakly against damp, clammy skin, before surrendering to the inexorable abyss. 

* * *

*

He was warm.

His body registered this fact before his mind did, curling towards the heat that was pressed against his side.

Warm. He hadn't been this warm in years. 

The heat shifted and Draco, still dancing the line between sleep and wakefulness, whimpered at its loss. He blindly reached out, fumbling drowsily until his hands connected once again with the intoxicating warmth and drew it close, basking in the calidity that washed over his skin, permeating through the ratty layers of clothes to encompass him. A soft caresses feathered gently across his brow and he murmured faintly, face pressing into the sweet touch.

“Draco.”

His mind tugged on the use of his name, groggily fighting the absolute exhaustion which detained his body. 

“Draco.” A little louder this time, a little harsher, against the shell of his ear. Unenthusiastically, he peeked an eye open, just enough to glimpse black, messy hair, a questionable beard style, and a very alive Harry. Potter grinned. “Hi.”

“Hi?” Draco echoed faintly, his brows furrowing. He pried both eyes open. “That’s what you're going to lead with. Hi?”

Harry shrugged, the movement jolting Draco, causing him to realise he was curled around Harry’s naked body. Had he always been naked? He struggled  to remember the night before, wincing at the emotions it induced. “It seemed fitting.”

Faced between wallowing in the pain and embracing the audacity, he went with the latter. “I came back to find you fucking  _ dying  _ in my bed, Harry!” He tried to shout, but his voice came out raspy and hoarse. “Do you know how bloody hard it was to save you?  _ I  _ could have died!” Perhaps that was a little melodramatic, but a whirlwind of emotions was coursing through him, and outrage was the easiest.

Harry’s voice softened. “But you didn't. And you're here. Really here.” He ran a hand reverently across Draco’s cheek, thumb pausing on his bottom lip. “You came back.” 

Draco didn't deserve the wonder in Harry’s tone. “I shouldn't have gone in the first place” he said quietly, head bowing so he wouldn't have to meet Harry’s eyes. His next words were barely intelligible. “Was it because of me?” Harry was quiet, and a dagger of self-hate pierced his heart. “My fault. My fucking fault.” He let out a distressed moan.

“Hey” Harry whispered, sliding his fingers under Draco’s jaw and gently coaxing it back up so they were face to face. “You saved me. I don't want to hear it, Draco. You caught me as I fell.”

“Nice of me, considering I was the one to push you.”

Harry ignored the retort. “Look” he said, bringing an arm out from below the blankets, and for the first time Draco saw the aftermath of his wrists. The raw, flayed cut was gone, replaced with a raised, jagged scar. Blood still stained the skin, but the mark itself looked pink and healthy.

“The other one...?” he trailed off.

“The same.” 

Draco reached out hesitantly, cautiously running his finger across the scar before letting his hand drop to his side. “Madam Pomfrey would have done a better job.” 

“I didn't have Madam Pomfrey. I had Madam Malfoy, who, in my opinion, is pretty fucking amazing. And much nicer to look at.” 

Draco could stop the small smile that tugged at his mouth. “You need to fix this.” He cupped Harry’s jaw. “The demi-beard is hideously uncouth.”

Harry rolled his eyes but got out of bed, stalking out the door with no heed to his nakedness. Once he had left, Draco sighed and closed his eyes. So much had been left unsaid, yet he didn't know if he had the willpower to face those conversations, not just yet. Not when it still seemed like a sadistic illusion that Harry was here, walking and talking and acting in a general Harryish way. As if Draco hadn't run. As if Harry hadn't decided a life without him wasn't a life worth living.

“Does this satisfy your delicate, aristocratic decorums?” Harry's voice startled him from his reverie, and he looked up to find his face clean shaven. 

“Much better” he replied, before stilling. It was only now, with Harry standing in the doorway in all his naked glory, that Draco let himself  _ look _ . Look, at the lean body, follow the lines from shoulders down toned arms, stomach and legs. In the last five years since Draco had laid eyes on him, he had changed, and there was no denying that the Harry standing before him was no longer a boy, but a man. Draco’s body clenched as he allowed himself, for the first time, to appreciate. There had been no denying that his body had wanted Harry, but as he lay frozen on the bed that longing doubled, and even though his mind still shied away from the thought of contact, he now knew what it felt like to have  _ lost  _ Harry, and that grief would, he hoped, be enough to overcome his past.

Harry swallowed under Draco’s heavy gaze and he approached him carefully, warily, until he too was on the bed, close, too close, but not close enough. “Whats this?” he asked in a breathy huff, his thumb tracing Draco’s wrist and along the cut, the one that had been made in desperation, in agony, and in love. Green to grey their eyes met. It had always been green to grey, even when it shouldn't have, years of history captured in the split meeting, a compelling attraction channeled into a distorted animosity, hostility a flimsy farce. 

Green to grey when it shouldn't have been, and now, when it should. 

With their lips still millimeters apart, Draco knew that this was it. A second chance to not be a coward. A second chance, to ignore the dark of his past and instead, focus on the light of now.

A second chance, and he could see the question in Harry’s face, feel it in the tentative touch of a hand curled cautiously over Draco’s hip. 

A small sigh left Draco’s mouth, and he closed the gap.

It was a soft, chaste kiss, a symbol of fears being conquered and a promise of more. It was an explanation, words going unsaid as understanding passed between them. It was a declaration, of something both felt, yet couldn't voice out loud.  

It was pleasure, as their mouths parted and Draco drank in the sweet, breathy moan that escaped Harry. It was heat, as Harry’s hand slipped lower to grip Draco’s arse, fingers digging in possessively and igniting the slow burn in his stomach to a clenching inferno, wanting more,  _ needing  _ more, as much as he could take. It was tenderness, as Harry slowly pulled away and Draco swore there were tears in his eyes, gentle hands, ardent touches, vulnerability. It was hope, that they had finally found a safe place, and hands to catch them as they fell.

“You can't cut again” Draco whispered breathily into the crook of Harry's neck, and he felt, more than saw, a smile spread. 

“At all?” Harry smirked, and when Draco pulled back to look, he was greeted with fire burning in Harry’s eyes, the smouldering promise that had been evident the other night, a silent oath that the dangerous game he wanted to play would be beneficial to both. He grabbed Draco’s wrist, bringing it slowly, ever so slowly, to his mouth. Appraisal, a deliberate pause before, and without breaking their gaze, he languidly ran his tongue across the wound. Draco lay motionless as he watched, Harry’s tongue back on the blood now he knew Draco wasn't running, lapping and sucking until his wrist was clean. A debauched groan had Draco’s gaze flicking down, knowing yet still seeking the hardness he saw there, his body needy, fearful,  _ wanton  _ at the sight.

“Rebel against it, Draco.” Harry’s voice was husky, low, and Draco had forgotten, forgotten how much he saw and how quickly his mind worked. “Fight it. Don’t let the people in your past write your future.” Draco gulped, swallowed, his own cock pressed fiercely against the waistband of his trousers, his body wanting and hungry and so insanely scared he felt ill. “Feel alive, Draco. Just for a moment in time.”

One breath. 

Two, three, before he deftly reached down to grasp the hot, hard heat between Harry’s legs. A choice,  _ his  _ choice, one filled with terror and defiance, but still his.

“Scared, Potter?” A smirk.

“You wish, Malfoy.” 


	11. Chapter Ten

Was it wrong that a mimicry of their school yard antagonism sent his abdomen clenching and his pulse racing? Possibly, but then again nothing between him and Harry was normal, and somehow it fit.

Harry loomed over him, arms either side of Draco’s shoulders, and Draco shivered, his mind and body caught in a fight between panic and arousal. A lazy smirk hovered on Harry’s lips as he took in Draco’s wide eyes, panting breaths, and his straining pants. “See, Draco” Harry purred, leaning down so his mouth was inches from his. “I told you that you wanted it. Look at you, so taut, wound up. Relax.”

“Get off me then, Potter” he snapped, twisting and rolling them so it was now Draco on top. Harry just grinned, seemingly happy enough to let Draco control the situation. For now.

“What you going to do to me,  _ Malfoy”  _ Harry teased, and the use of his last name sent shocks of pleasure down Draco’s body, reminiscent of the boys at Hogwarts they had been, a reminder that this was Harry Potter, and he was Draco Malfoy, and they were, probably, hopefully, going to have sex. “You going to fight me?” Fingertips skated up his sides, pulling his top up and leaving goosebumps where they brushed against his bare skin. Even from the bottom it felt like Harry was in control, and he fought against the compelling urge to submit.    

“You're the one naked, you know” Draco smirked. “I wouldn't be so cocky, if I were you.” 

“Why, Malfoy, I think you’re right.” Harry grinned, and it set Draco on edge. “Shall we remedy that disastrous problem?” Suddenly, Harry’s hands were grabbing the bottom of his many shirts, pulling them up, over, off, all at once, until his chest was bare, his clothes on the floor, and Harry looked far too pleased with himself.

The cold air brushed against his newly freed skin, hardening his nipples and sensitising his flesh. He couldn't stifle a groan as Harry pulled his body until he was straddling Harry’s legs, his cock nudging at Draco's still-covered hole indecently. “You know, I don't really mind being under you, right now.” A hand reached up to toy with his nipple, the other flattening out over his pelvic bone, fingers brushing closer and closer to where he desperately needed them to be, yet panic still rose at the thought of. “Not when I get to lie back and perv at you in all your wanton glory.” 

A blush stained  his cheeks, and it was wrong, so wrong, because it was meant to be Draco in control, Draco in charge.  _ Harry  _ writhing in pleasure and biting his lips to stop the need to cry out for more, just from his nipples being touched. Draco was done being the whore, the toy to be played with. He wanted to be the giver, not the taker, and the knowledge that his body was responding to Harry’s sly taunts, responding to his control, sickened him. 

This, among other things, was about proving to himself the he could be more than the pretty little submissive his father had conditioned, Voldemort had tortured, and muggles had used. He was more, should be more.

“Draco” Harry’s voice was soft, his tone harbouring nothing but care, and love. “You’re thinking too much. Let go. I promise I’ll catch you.”

“Easy for you to say, Potter, when your ass hasn't been violated and abused since you were six. Fucking shut up, and kiss me.” 

Harry studied Draco for a long second, before yanking him down and doing just that, their lips melding even as their tongues battled for control, breath hot and panting, hands clutching desperately at any inch of skin they could. Draco swallowed Harry’s moans as his ass pressed against Harry’s dick, rocking his hips forward, grinding harder and  _ down,  _ relishing the needy whimpers and Harry’s bucking hips as much as his own pleasure.

Harry’s hands were on Draco’s waistband even as his mouth moved on to his neck, his teeth biting harshly at the skin before the soft swipe of his tongue soothed the pain, along his jaw and to his ear lobes, a hyper sensitised symphony that had Draco wriggling and panting like a virgin. Honestly, he pretty much was when it came to sex, the only pleasure gained was from Voldemort’s imperius, which was no pleasure at all. 

A low grunt and a muttered “oh for fuck’s sake” was his only warning before Harry flicked his hand and Draco’s pants were gone, the sudden heat against his ass and thighs making his breath hitch 

“Much better” Potter growled, eyes fixating on Draco’s recently liberated cock as it came to rest against his stomach . Now seemingly hesitant, he reached out and curled his hand around Draco’s dick, dragging free a broken moan at the contact. “Why is it, Malfoy, that you have to beat me at everything?” he asked with a grin.

Draco looked down, confused, more focused on Harry’s hand that had started languidly sliding up and down his length. “Because I'm fabulous? Not that I actually know what you’re on about.”

“This -” he gave Draco’s dick a sharp tug that had him whimpering in pleasure “-is possibly the most perfect thing I have ever seen.” Feeling awkward and ten times more aroused, Draco simply laughed. Harry’s eyes flicked up to him, the humour of the last few minutes having been replaced by heavy desire. “Do you know how much I want to bleed you right now?” His voice was low and husky.

Draco instantly stilled, terror flashing through him. “B-bleed me?” he stammered, his mind instantly flashing back to the past. Voldemort had bled him. Fucked him and bled him and raped him and made him  _ enjoy it.  _ “No, Potter.” What was meant to be stern came out strained and timid.

In a sudden movement, Harry flipped them so Draco was under him, head pressed against the intricate iron headboard. “Yes, Draco” Harry purred,shuffling down to bury his nose into Draco’s pubic hair and inhaling deeply, an alarmingly intimate gesture that had him feeling both awkward, yet ridiculously horny at the same time. 

“Harry” he panted, trying to ignore the trails of heat Harry was inflicting on his hip bones with his tongue. “There is no way in fucking hell I'm going to let you cut me, or yourself.”

“It’s not the same” Potter replied in a tone Draco guessed was meant to be reassuring. He finally looked up from his attack and Draco sighed, welcoming yet resenting the break. “Draco... this isn't - wouldn't be - about redemption. It's not about paying for blood spilt.” His eyes darkened, and Draco wished he was unable to look away from that intense scrutiny, the gaze that saw too much, eyes that pierced through his defences. “I want your blood. I want to see it, I want to feel it. I want to taste it, lick the droplets from your body. I want that vitality, the proof that you're alive and before me, that as I kiss the wounds and heal the pain it's  _ you,  _ needy and wanting and hard.” Harry paused, eyes lidded, and Draco lay shock-still, the words turning uncomfortably in his head even as his body reacted shamelessly to the heady desire in Potter’s tone. 

What Harry was asking for was twisted and sick, too much like what he had been forced to give before, endure. It was too much, too soon, and would only ensure that Draco could never forget that he was indeed what everyone had claimed; a depraved, perverse whore, a needy little pain slut, a sick, unnatural queer. He had been all those things for his father, for Voldemort, It shouldn't have surprised him that Harry - dark, disturbed, fucked-up Harry - was no different. This was never going to be sweet, halcyon love making.

Why was he kidding himself? This was all he deserved. He should have been thankful, that Harry even wanted to touch his defiled, grotesque body.

“Fine. Do it” he said woodenly, squeezing his eyes shut and preparing for the pain.

“Draco” Harry said, and there was so much just in that one word that Draco’s eyes flicked back open, startling when Harry’s face was right in front of him, filled with promise, and care, and  _ oh god  _ so much fucking love that Draco didn't deserve. It made him want to cry. “Draco.” Harry’s voice was low and intense. “Do you think I would ever do anything to seriously harm you? I’ve lost you once. I’m not going to do it again.” His tone turned frustrated. “It’s just so fucking hard! To see you walking around, and know that it’s your past weighing down. To know what happened to you, to know that I should have stopped it, yet you're still standing here,  _ trying, _ for me. You need to let go, Draco, let the past go and accept the free fall, because I’m going to be here to catch your fall. It could be good,  _ so fucking good,  _ because you're not the scared boy your father raised, and you're not the boy who endured so fucking much at the hands of Voldemort. God, Draco -” Harry’s voice broke, hands tightening almost to the point of pain on Draco’s hips. “- You’re Draco. You’re sassy, gorgeous, brave Malfoy. You're the man who pulled me from the dead, in more ways than one. This isn't going to be simple, you've said it yourself. But I’m trying. For you. I wont cut for redemption, not any more, because you give me hope. But the blood... I need it. I need it from you. Because sometimes, I don't even believe that you're real, but it's tangible, blood doesn't lie, and it kills me to ask because I'm so sure you will run, but  _ I need it.” _

Harry cut off with a gulp, his head dropping to rest against Draco’s chest, his hands still clenched on his hips as if desperately willing him to stay. “The first time I cut you” Draco eventually whispered, and Harry went still. “Where was is?”

“On my chest. Two parallel lines” Harry automatically answered before falling silent, his brows drawn. Abruptly, his head flashed up and his gaze zeroed in on Draco’s chest. “Sectumsempra” he breathed. “I hadn’t realised.” 

“You can't see them; they’ve been lost among the countless others. But that’s what the curse left. I’ve marked you, off me. It’s your turn to do the same.”

Harry didn't need to ask what he meant, and all Draco hoped was that he didn’t take the invitation too literally. Instead, Harry moved down so that he was kneeling between Draco’s legs, and he felt so open, so exposed, like he was presenting his body for Harry’s hands.

Which, really, was the truth. 

There was a glint in Harry’s hand, and it seemed fitting when he made out the shard of mirror. Two new beginnings had been forged from the glass, both essential in their own way to moving on, in overcoming and letting go.  

He expected pain, but felt only Harry's mouth back on him, his persuasive tongue once again sucking and nipping at the accentuated bones of Draco’s hips and pelvis, hot swipes up the crease of his thigh, Harry’s cheek brushing against Draco’s cock. He was hard, achingly hard, and even knowing what was about to come couldn't diminish the pleasure that burned in his gut and clenched at his spine. One of Harry’s hands moved down, fingers trailing down over balls, making them tighten, before moving to rest against his hole, a finger stroking lightly back and forth.

“Harry” Draco moaned, wanting Harry to do it, hating that he did. “Harry. Make me bleed.”

Harry didn't need to be asked twice. With a desperate groan he pressed the shard to Draco’s inner thigh which tensed with the rest of him, not from the pain but from the _pleasure,_ Harry’s need and arousal setting Draco on edge. A hitched moan, as Harry dragged the blade down and across, and he could feel it, _knew_ what was being carved into his skin, even as one was completed and Harry moved on to the other thigh. It stung, but the sting seemed to exacerbate the conflagration which burned recklessly through his body, the barrage of sensations managing to block out the scream of his mind, and its memories. It wasn't until Harry let out a sharp moan that he realised the cuts were complete, and he was staring hypnotised by the blood Draco could now feel starting to slick down his thighs. 

Fingertips were sliding through the blood, patterns emerging out of the chaos as Harry revelled in the welling and drip of crimson, breath heavy and laboured. It felt heady, Harry’s hands on him, like before he had been a  blank canvas just waiting for someone to come along and add life to it, blood the vital, irreplaceable medium. Slickened, red fingers wrapped around his cock, and there was something so primal, so basic, about it that he couldn't help the buck of his groin into Harry’s grasp, or the debauched yelp when the moist heat of Harry’s mouth proceeded to engulf his bloodied dick.  

“Like a pretty red lollipop” Harry murmured around a mouthful of Draco, and Draco couldn't help the hysterical laugh that escaped him, even as his hands clutched Harry’s shoulders and his eyes fluttered.

“Really, Potter?” 

Harry just grinned, and Draco looked down to see two perfect lighting bolt cuts on his thighs. A fitting end, both having given something that had been forced upon them a new meaning.

Eventually, every stain of  crimson had been licked painstakingly from his body. He reached for Harry, desperate to touch him, but his hand caught on something, and he realised he was bound, each wrist and ankle tethered to a corner of the bed so he was restrained in an unyielding X. Panic seared through him like wildfire, annihilating every ounce of lust, replacing it with terror and hysteria. 

“What the fuck did you do, Harry?” he exclaimed, pulling frantically at the fine, yet strangely harsh ropes entwined around his limbs.

“Hmm?” Harry looked up drunkenly, tongue flicking out to lick his lips. “Nothing. Well, I wouldn't say nothing but - “ he paused abruptly. “Draco, why are you tied to the bed?”

“Don’t act innocent, Potter” Draco growled, temper rising along with the panic. “Untie me, you brute!”

“But Draco. I quite like seeing you spread and writhing, knowing you can’t run.” Harry smirked, and the hunger in his eyes gleamed. “My pretty little Draco. Look at you, all panting and debauched. Why try to fight what you know you like? What you enjoy? I can see it in your eyes, Malfoy. You  _ want  _ to be helpless to my every whim.”

“I’m not fucking submissive, Harry.” No. That was what Voldemort and his father had wanted. He wasn’t,  _ couldn't be,  _ that person. 

“Did I ever say you were?” Harry’s hands trailed over Draco’s sides, down his thighs, feather light over his dick. “Just because you get off on being restrained doesn't make you a sub. It’s a stupid word, Draco. I’m not hand feeding you grapes while you sit on your heels at my feet. Although-” 

“I’m not your whore to trifle with!” The intensity of his voice startled Harry, and he looked at him. “This is no fucking different than being the tortured sex slave of the Dark Lord, or my father's young plaything! You want a whore, Harry? You want someone to bind, and whip? A body to violate? Something that, once struck by the sharp crack of a cane and torn to shreds by the cat o nine, you can watch as the bruises bloom and the wounds bleed? Oh, wait. That probably sounds amazing to you.”

“It does.” Draco couldn't help the flinch, not actually expecting Potter to agree. “But that’s not what I’m asking of you. You’re more than that, far more, and just because someone likes to be bound, likes pain, craves to be dominated by others, doesn't make them less. It makes them more, because it's a lot harder to admit you want that, than it is to take a whip to someone.”

“I disagree, Potter. Admitting that would be saying  I enjoyed what Voldemort put me through.”

“That was rape, Draco,” and Harry’s voice was so laced with pity, it made him furious. “They are completely different.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. Maybe I want to whip  _ you.” _

Draco swore Harry rolled his eyes. “Does that sound good to you? Well, let's go then.” With a quick movement, he had grabbed a blade off the side table and had Draco’s ropes cut. 

“Let's go?” Draco queried, rubbing his wrists.

“Whip me. Tell me how good it feels. Come on, Malfoy” There was challenge in his eyes, a challenge Draco couldn't ignore. “Whip me. I’m sure there’s a cane in that wardrobe.” He swung his hand randomly in the direction of a solid oak tall boy.

Muttering something along the lines of ‘dare I ask?’ Draco stalked towards the closet, refusing to acknowledge the apprehension settling in his gut,  instead focusing on the outrage, the disgust - at him, and himself. Finding the supple wooden cane, he turned to face Harry, who smirked. Oh, fuck, did he want to cane that smirk off his face. 

“I’m not a fucking whore” Draco snarled, and his arm whipped out, the cane connecting with the outer side of Harry’s thigh. It was a wild shot, unwieldy, but the crack and sting was enough to make Harry hiss and Draco flinch. 

“Again.”

Draco snarled. “Fuck you, Potter.” Another blow landed, this time on Harry’s hip, the sound echoing through the house. The feeling of inflicting pain was heady, an outlet for his rage and disgust. “You like that?”

“Is that all you got, Malfoy?” Harry gritted out defiantly. 

“No.” His arm lashed out, the cane connecting with Harry’s nipple, and then he was moving, circling Potter and falling into some sort of trance as hit after hit rained down across Harry; back, shoulders, ass, thighs. Groin. Welts laced his body, hot and red, and it felt so  _ good  _ to Draco, to inflict pain akin to what he had gone through. Addictive.

It was only when the cane connected with a particularity bad welt, and Harry let out a pained cry, that Draco was pulled out of his trance. Body heaving from excursion, he paused to regain his breath, eyes seeking out Harry’s.

Harry had dropped to his knees, arms braced on the floor, bare back a mess of welts and the beginnings of bruises, blood dripping down the swollen flesh. His head drooped, his body shaking, clenching and unclenching as he fought through the strain. Small whimpers escaped his mouth, and his hitched breathing made Draco think he was fighting tears.

What the  _ fuck  _ had he done? Draco’s stomach heaved, before he was violently sick beside the wardrobe. “Harry? Shit, Harry, I’m so sorry.” He bent down beside him, hands fluttering awkwardly over the ruined, bloody skin beside him, wanting to help but couldn't, his body sick with revulsion and his mind unable to process the scene before him.

“It’s fine, Draco” Harry managed to cough out, moaning as he straightened to sit on his heals.

“No, its not fucking fine, I can't believe I did that... Why the fuck did you let me?!” Draco’s voice rose to hysteria. He was no better than his father, no better than the muggles who abused his body. He, Draco, had inflicted that damage on Harry, created the cuts and agony, in a twisted sense of vengeance. Yet it had been aimed at the wrong person, and Harry had been forced to suffer through the vindictiveness as Draco had tried to dominate his past. 

He was sick. Sick, twisted, and cruel, and it seemed like he had finally shown Harry his true colours. That, more than anything, made him break down to tears.

“Draco. Draco, It’s fine. Please.” Harry pulled himself off the floor to wrap his arms around Draco, wincing slightly as skin met abused skin. “I asked you to. I wanted to prove a point, and I have.”

“So are you happy that it's been made clearly oblivious that I'm no better than the men who tortured me?”

“Draco” Harry actually laughed. “You are about as far away from those men as you could be. Just let me care for you.”

“You will do no such thing. I sicken myself.” 

“Draco.” Harry’s voice dropped. “Stop it.”

“No!” Draco screeched wildly. “So I'm not some commanding dominant, but I refuse to be the sub who takes it, craves the pain, and begs for their master!”

“Then don't be! Fuck the past, Malfoy! Fuck the people who tried to tell you what you were! Fuck the labels, and what's ‘right’ and what's ‘wrong’! Just let yourself  _ be,  _ for once in your life! Just close your eyes, Draco, and step off into the free fall, because I will, I will catch you!” Harry stood, chest heaving, body red and wounded, fire blazing in his eyes, hands gripping Draco’s upper arms, and he didn't think he had ever,  _ ever,  _ seen anything so compelling. Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World, dead, broken Potter, looked alive. Draco was frozen, unmoving and unable to utter a word, his body reacting shamelessly to the power behind those words, and maybe, just maybe, he wanted all that.

Harry, obviously annoyed by Draco’s stunned silence, let out a snarl before picking Draco up like he weighed nothing and throwing him onto the bed. Draco struggled, twisting and bucking but Harry was stronger, one hand wrapped around Draco’s frail wrists while he loomed over him, stretching Draco’s body out. “Fucking accept it, Draco” he growled, and there was something so powerful, so intense, so hot, just in that one command, that it took Draco everything he had not to comply. “Let yourself go. I’ll catch you.” Harry’s thighs pressed Draco’s open, and there was nothing he could do, his wrists restrained and his legs spread, he felt like a shameless whore, a needy slut, his mind chanting _yes, yes, yes,_ even as his body battled. One of Harry’s knees moved up to press harshly against his aching balls, and Draco didn't know when he had become hard again, but he was, his erection bouncing hotly against his pelvis, trailing patches of pre-cum. Harry’s hand wrapped around his length, hot and hard and _right_ ; and as Harry violently jerked it before landing a sharp slap against its leaking head, he knew he was gone. 

It was violent, and perfect in a way it made him feel alive, his body needing Harry, needing his control, because it was only then that he could let himself go.

Harry had promised to catch him, and in that one moment, Draco trusted him to do just that. 

He let out another needy whimper as a hand wrapped around his balls, pulling and rolling them in a way that shouldn't feel good but _did_. the other hand still wrapped around his cock, slicking over the tip. The pleasure was too much, toes curling and back arching and body desperately pleading for more, so much more, more pain and more control and more _Harry_.

“Say it, Malfoy” Harry snarled, form tense and strained from the effort of holding Draco down, controlling his wild body. “I’m not going to fuck you till you say it.”

Draco thrashed his head back and forth, eyes shut, desire overloading his system. He needed it, begged for it, but it was one thing to want it, and another to voice it, and his mind still screamed at him to stop. 

“It’s your choice, Malfoy. Stop denying it. Let yourself feel alive, just for a moment in time.” Harry growled, before leaning down to bite him,  _ hard,  _ on his nipple, sending his body cascading into a shaking mess of pleasure. 

“Fine!” Draco yelled, but it was more of a plea. “Fuck me, Harry. Fuck me and own me and catch me.”

He didn't need to ask twice.

With a moan, the hardness that had been nudging against his ass pushed forward, the tip pressing into the tight, clamping heat with no preparation at all. Draco let out a strangled cry, body rejecting the intrusion even as his mind begged for it. Another thrust, Harry inching deeper, and it was excruciating and horrible and perfect and not enough all at once. Draco realised he had been a fool to deny that he wanted the pain, because the pain made him feel alive, just as much as Harry grunting above him did. His ass was burning, the muscles clenching. Resisting. Draco didn't know how he was ever going to possibly take him all. 

“Fuck, Malfoy. So fucking tight.” Harry maneuvered Draco’s legs so that they were resting on his shoulders, and all Draco could concentrate on was the burning desire and the pure pleasure written across Harry’s straining face.

Harry was deep, his hips against Draco’s ass, fucking him unrelentingly, pushing Draco up the bed with each thrust. His fingers clutched Harry’s back, digging in, needing the support and the anchorage it provided. His body was on fire, the burning heat in his abdomen and the clenching of his balls, close, so close, but not close enough, desperately needing the push to send him spiralling into free fall. “Slap me, Potter” he begged desperately, and when it came that was all it took, Harry’s hand colliding with his tip and pushing him over the edge, a keening wail emitted as he came, milky seed coating his stomach as well as Harry’s. There was something so primal, so intoxicating, about seeing himself smeared over Harry, making his territory and staking his claim.

“Over” Harry commanded, flipping Draco over so that he was on his stomach. “Hold on to the headboard.” He complied, before Harry was back in him, filling and stretching and burying deeper. Harry grabbed Draco’s hips, lifting him so that it was only the strength in Harry’s arms and the support of his hands that kept Draco up. The cock in his ass demanding, powerful, so fucking amazing that he briefly wondered how he had managed to go his whole life without being fucked by Harry and his wonderful appendage. 

“See, Draco” Harry panted, wonder in his voice even as it strained with need. “This is you. Not the conditioned child, or the rebellious teen. This is you, not controlled by your past or governed by expectations, and it's fucking beautiful.” Potters rhythm sped up, till there was no rhythm at all, hips slapping against Draco’s ass erratically, breathing stilted and uneven, hands biting into Draco’s hips with a pressure sure to leave marks. Draco found himself craving that evidence with a fierce hunger. 

“Cum, Harry” Draco whimpered, needing to feel that release, the hot cum in his ass and what it symbolised, knowing that it was from Harry,  _ was  _ Harry, and desiring all of it. “Fucking cum all in me.”

With a ragged growl, Harry did, hips bucking and slamming into Draco’s ass one last time, his dick pulsing and his hands clamping. Draco whimpered, reveling in the sensations, the hot warmth he could feel, yet wanting more, needing more of Harry. Blood and cum not nearly enough to sate the woken hunger. “More” he demanded, wanting everything, anything, Potter had to give, even with his dick still shoved up his ass.

Harry groaned. “More, Malfoy? You want more?” Draco only moaned in response, before abruptly there was another heat in his ass, hot, perfect, filthy. It was humiliating, taboo, so base and primal;  _ knowing  _ it was Harry’s piss in him, the pressure building - a dam ready to burst. Finally, Harry pulled his limp cock out of Draco’s hole, leaving him to feel the streams of cum and piss running down his legs, making his dick harden once again, the total indecency and lewdness of the gesture arching his body in desire. “Was that enough for you, Malfoy?” Harry breathed into his ear, and Draco could only shake his head. Because it was true, he didn't know if he could ever get enough, and at that one moment in time, it didn't matter that he was a filthy dick pig, an unscrupulous, indecent slut, only that Harry was there. 

It was at that one moment, with cum and urine cooling on his legs and around his abused ass, that he felt alive. 

He didn't know how long they laid there afterwards, both Harry and himself finding their way back down from the blissful, addictive, impenetrable high, sweat and body fluids drying on their skin in the cool air. Only that when Harry rolled away and got up silently, Draco had to pry a sleepy eye open to watch the movement, instantly missing the warmth at his side. Harry stopped at a dresser opposite the bed, standing there for a long while before picking up a long wooden box and carrying it back to bed. He sat down hesitantly, such a contrast to the man who had just given him what felt like the world.

“Don’t hate me” Harry warned, and Draco could only blink in confusion as Potter took a deep breath and pushed the case into his hands. “Open it.”

Draco gave Harry a long look, turning the box over in his hands, before sighing and undoing the catch that held the case closed. His breath caught, betrayal cutting through him as what was inside was revealed. “Potter” he stated lowly. “Why do you have my wand?”


	12. Chapter Eleven

Potter...  _ Harry...  _ Potter... had the decency to look sheepish. “It’s a... long story” he replied, deliberately not meeting Draco’s eyes. 

“Well, you know what? I’ve got nothing but time.” The betrayal was consuming, and he fought to hold on to his rationality. 

Potter sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair. “Well, what I told you before was pretty much true. Except that I didn't lose it.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Potter, but that seems to be a pretty important point.”

“I had my reasons.” Potter’s voice was low.

“I let you fuck me. I let you cut me. I  _ trusted  _ you.” That, out of everything, hurt the most. “And now to find out that you've had my wand the whole time? We had  _ talked  _ about it. When did it fall to you to decide what I did and didn't deserve?

“It wasn't about what you deserve, Draco. I would give you anything-”

Draco cut him off. “That’s funny, considering I would have given anything to have my wand! I wouldn't have had to rely on you, then. I would have been able to protect myself!” 

Potter reached for his hand but Draco pulled away, tightening the bed covers around his naked body, his posture ramrod straight as he tried to control his emotions. “Draco” Potter spoke softly. “I didn’t give it to you because I didn't want you to go. If you had had your wand, you wouldn't have needed me.”

“And I wouldn't have cut you. Don't worry, I understand Potter. You denied me my wand simply so I would be forced to play your sick, twisted game. Everything I a -”

“Don't” Potter interrupted sharply. “I understand that you’re hurt, pissed off, but don't turn what we just did into something heinous and dark.”

“What did you expect? ‘Oh thank you, Potter, I will love you forever for returning my wand’? Why now, anyway? Did the guilt get too much?” Draco sneered the end words with malice.

“Because I trusted you not to leave.” Draco finally looked up, meeting Harry’s -  _ Potter’s -  _ earnest gaze. “Because I trusted that you wanted to stay.”

Draco looked away, taking his wand out of the box and absently turning it over in his fingers, the familiar feel, the smell, calming and reassuring him as it always had. He could leave. Right now. Just get up and walk straight out the door, without a backward look at Potter. A stab of pain clenched his heart at the thought, and he shook his head. 

He had left once before, and look how that had turned out. The image of Harry dying on his bed came unbidden to his mind, broken and bleeding, the cuts a macabre focal-point. Perhaps he could kid himself that he was staying out of concern for Harry, yet truthfully, he just didn't want to face the pain of walking away. Not now. Not ever. 

Harry was still staring at him intently, and when he went to take Draco’s hand again he let him. “I know it was selfish” Harry said softly. “But I couldn't risk you leaving. At first, because I needed you to bleed me. Later, because I loved you.” 

Draco sighed, untangling himself from the sheets so he could search for his abandoned clothes. “What do you expect me to do now? A barrage of cleaning charms? I have to warn you now, I’ve never been good at those.”

“I thought...” Harry swallowed, and there was a distinct note of apprehension in his voice. “I thought we could go get your mother.”

Draco froze. “Now?” he breathed.

“Why not?”

* * *

*

Once clothed, they apparated outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, and Draco was struck by a strong sense of deja-vu. It felt like a lifetime ago that he had stood here with Harry. Acknowledged, for the first time, that he wanted the other man, wanted him in a way that had set his body alight with longing and need. Now, standing next to him, Harry’s arm curled around his waist and his breathing reassuringly steady in Draco’s ear, all he could feel was profound gratification that Harry was here,  _ with him,  _ seemingly willing to take on the world, as long as it made Draco happy. 

The world was possibly a preferable foe, compared to Lucius Malfoy. 

“Don’t we need a plan?” Draco voiced, not for the first time. 

“I work better without plans” Harry replied, studying the Manor grounds intently.

“Harry. You rely on sheer dumb luck. I don’t have any of that, which has been proven countless times.”

“Draco” Harry turned to him, a soft smile on his face. “You managed to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts at the age of 16. We can break your mother out.”

“Don't underestimate my father, Harry. He’s smart and ruthless.” Draco was strong enough to admit that Lucius still terrified him, his fear as a child mixing with what he had seen, experienced, as an adult.  

Harry gave a grim sigh. “So am I.” He took Draco’s hand gently, giving it a tight squeeze. “We need your blood.”

“Such a hardship, I’m sure.” Draco pulled his wand out of his coat pocket, meaning to cut his palm, but Harry caught his wrist. 

“Let me.” In the other hand Harry held a piece of rock, and Draco knew, knew it was the piece from last time. 

“You kept it?” 

“Of course. It had tasted your blood.” Harry’s tone had dropped and his gaze was lidded. His tongue darted out, running quickly over his bottom lip, a movement which Draco watched with an eager eye. For a moment, he forgot he was standing outside the house which had been the location for so much of his pain, his mother's jail, his father's lair. For a moment, all he could focus on was the clench in his spine as Harry ran the stone deeply down his palm, a thumb wrapped around his wrist - the wrist which would forever bear homage to Harry. Harry pressed Draco’s palm to the iron gates, and as they had before, they swung open for them, a graceful movement which contrasted harshly with their imposing stature. Harry pulled them so they were inside the Manor grounds, allowing the gates to shut softly behind them before he turned Draco to face him. “Perfect” he whispered, before bringing Draco’s palm to his mouth and ardently cleaning off the drying blood, wet and hot and nearly bringing Draco to his knees.

Draco’s mouth was dry, spare hand clenched at his side and body alight with lust and longing. “Wouldn't want to waste any” he managed to breathe.

“No. We wouldn't.” They stared at each other, bodies tense with arousal and want, breath harsh and loud against the quiet backdrop. 

A sudden commotion from somewhere within the Manor grounds broke the trance, an unwelcome interruption into their recherché moment, the one sliver of harmony amongst the cacophony of their lives. “It's just the peacocks” Draco commented, seeing Harry’s guarded posture. “They fight. Constantly.”

“Why have them at all, then?” Harry asked, somewhat incredulously.

“Because my mother liked them. Likes them” he amended. Fear was making him shaky, paranoia whispering through his mind, an unwelcome, inexorable foe. Perhaps it was a leftover side effect from having harboured Voldemort, or maybe it had always been that way, but the Manor seemed to suck all traces of hope and defiance out of him, crushing his soul until he was left with only one conviction: that they would fail. 

A soft brush of lips caressed his head, and the achingly intimate gesture was enough for Draco to dispel some of the despair, clutching on to the emotions Harry elicited like a lifeboat lost at sea. “It’s the aftermath of Dark Magic” Harry stated, pulling Draco closer to his body, a protective movement Draco found comforting, although he would never admit it. “Like the portrait at Grimmauld Place. Use a lot of magic, and it's bound to leave a trace.”

“It never used to be like this.” There was a distinct note of sadness in Draco’s voice, and he wrapped his arms around himself in an automatic seek for comfort. “It was my mother's pride and joy. Not only her sanctuary, but the pure essence which fed her life. Just another thing my father destroyed.”

“We’re not going to let him consume anything else.” Harry’s voice was hard, resolute, and it was then that Draco fully understood Harry wasn't just doing this for him. What was happening inside - and outside - the walls of the Manor called to his base instinct; a need to protect others, eradicate the wickedness wrecking havoc to innocents, nullify the threat.

Harry Potter, former Saviour of the Wizarding World, depraved cut-slut and blood-whore, conqueror of Draco Malfoy, was answering the ingrained compulsion to save once again. 

“Do we just go in through the front door again?” Harry was looking at Draco, and it took him a moment to process what had just been said.

“For fuck’s sake, no? My father's office overlooks the path. I was assuming this was going to be a stealth mission.”

“You want to leave Lucius unharmed?” Harry looked surprised. 

Draco was grim. “I just want to get my mother out.”

Harry studied him for a second. “Bush it is, then.” 

“Jesus, Harry. I know you don't like to plan even five minutes into the future, but we do actually need to think about this. I don't want to come across my father if we can help it. Hopefully he won't even be there, but if he is, he will most likely be in his office or the dungeons.”

“What about your mother?” 

“The front parlour was always a favourite of hers, mostly because it had a beautiful view of the grounds. With them in this state of disarray, she might be avoiding it.” Draco trailed off, brows furrowed in thought, before abruptly letting out a annoyed moan. “I don't even know where she will be. It was pure luck we found her last time. We may end up searching the whole fucking house.”

“Makes me wish I had my invisibility cloak.” Draco raised an eyebrow, situation forgotten for a second. “It was my father's” Harry explained with a languid grin, giving Draco the impression he was purposely antagonising him. “Came in handy at Hogwarts.”

“No wonder you never got into trouble, you bloody sod! Hypocritical git.” 

“Careful, Malfoy. You sound jealous.” Harry gave him a lazy smirk, which Draco answered with a glare.

“Well, you’re not lucky then, you just had useful toys. That doesn't instil much faith regarding our present endeavour.”

“It will be fine. Now, you said the front door isn't an option, but there must be more than one entrance.”

“Of course” Draco nodded, mind firmly back on the task at hand. “There’s a side door which leads into the kitchens. Once there, it will be easy enough to check the ground floor. I don't want to risk the upper stories if we can help it.”

Harry shrugged. “I trust you.” 

They set off towards the house, sticking close to the boundary where the trees offered shadowy protection from prying eyes, Draco in front with Harry right behind. Occasionally, he could feel Harry brush against his body, and it was these accidental touches which fuelled his resolve and gave him strength.

“I feel like James Bond” Harry murmured at one point after they had been unsuspectingly pounced on by a stray peacock, causing Draco to wave his wand wildly at the creature, and Harry to tackle it. The creature had walked away unharmed, after a dignified ruffling of feathers and a evil glare at Harry.

“And that would be whom?”

“This make-believe character. He’s the most iconic spy in muggle culture, stealthy, bad-ass, and dressed perfectly in fantastic suits.”

“Only muggles would idolise a man who battles peacocks” Draco replied, confused, and the look Harry gave him made him think he hadn't quite understood. “That’s the entrance we want” he quietly said after a few minutes, stilling to point at a door set unobtrusively in the wall. 

“Are you ready?” 

“As I'll ever be. Let's go, and be quiet.” A quick sprint across the open grounds, and Draco was easing the door open before slipping inside, heart pounding as he hastily checked that the kitchen was empty. 

“Nice place” Harry whispered in his ear, making Draco jolt. 

“Not that anyone other than the house-elves use it.”

“Do we need to be worried about them?”

Draco hadn't thought about that, so intent on avoiding his father. “I think they are the least of our problems. Knowing my father, and how he treats them, they won't inform him unless he explicitly asks.” 

Draco crossed the room, gingerly opening the door which led to the main hall. “Stealth, Potter. Channel your Jim Bond, or whoever.”

“James. Does that make you my Pussy Galore? My Honey Ryder? Or perhaps you’re more Octopussy?” 

“Harry” Draco said stiffly. “I’ll be whoever the fuck you want me to be, as long as you shut up and concentrate on saving my mother.”

Harry grinned but fell silent after leaning to breath in Draco’s ear “That’s quite the promise.”

Draco closed his eyes, allowing himself a brief second to enjoy the feel of Harry’s breath on his exposed skin, the body heat which radiated from his proximity, the shiver down his sides and the quick tightening in his groin. “Later.”

They had made their way into his mother's parlour when they heard it; a contorted, warped cry that tainted the previously silent house, resonating through the destitute rooms and burying its way into Draco’s soul, a festering contamination igniting the pure panic that now laced through him. “The dungeons” Draco croaked, fear stilting his voice.

“Narcissa?” Harry asked lowly, hand cluched around the door frame.

“I can't take the chance that it is.”

“Lucius will be down there.” That much was evident. No human could have made that scream under normal circumstances. 

“Then I face him.” Draco’s face was set in grim determination, hand clutching his wand. Harry caught his spare hand, thumb running quickly over the scar there.

“We face him.” 

Draco shot Harry a quick look before nodding, his breathing strained as he prepared for the inevitable confrontation with the man who had ruined his childhood and tainted his life. He set off, no heed to secrecy any longer, his strides long and absolute as he led Harry to the entranceway of the dungeons. 

“It’s been a while since I was here” Harry murmured emotionlessly, staring blankly down the darkened passage.

Draco instantly felt guilty. “I didn't even think, Harry. You don't need to come -” 

“No.” Harry instantly cut Draco off. “I do. I won't let the past stand in the way of my present.”  

Draco didn't argue. Apprehensively, he place a foot on the steps which descended into an inky black void, battling the memories barraging his conscience. No. He could do this, fight the demons that clung to his mind, the monster who lurked at the bottom of the steps. 

He could do it; for his mother.

Taking a breath, he steadied himself. “Into the labyrinth we go.”

He could feel Harry behind him, the small touch at the small of his back. “Down into the rabbit hole.”

The descent to the dungeons seemed to take an eon, both men hyper-aware of the smallest of sounds and noises. Cold, musty air clung to their skin, although Draco could feel a cold sweat breaking out along his goosebumped flesh. Eventually the stairs ended, and Draco held Harry back with an arm. “All we have is the element of surprise. Knowing my father, he will toy with me first, but having you here might push him to act faster.” He couldn't see Harry’s reply in the dark but trusted that he understood.

Pushing open the metal gate that barred his entry, the cavernous space was revealed. 

Torches lined the damp walls, their haphazard shadowy flicker the only light in the atramentous gloom. Chains hung menacingly from all corners, and Draco had to swallow the instinctual bile which rose just from looking at them.  _ Cold. Pain. Torture. Perverted pleasure, distorted desire. Objurgation the least of his woes.  _ A quiet shuffle, and his flashback was broken, an unbidden shiver the only sign of his internal war. At the center of the room a shape huddled on the floor, and he had to suppress a shout when he realised it was his mother. 

Draco went to step forward but Harry pulled him back, silently pointing to where another figure had materialized from the murky recess. 

“Well, my sweet. Are you enjoying your time down here?” Lucius’ voice carried through the barren room. “It must be gratifying, delightful even, to stand where to many others have, feel the pleasures that once rained upon them.”

Narcissa made no sound or movement, and the urge to protect her flared through Draco’s body like wildfire. “Whatever happens” he whispered to Harry. “Whatever happens, just let me deal with it. He’s mine to punish.”

Lucius continued. “I admit, I did expect more from you. Foolish, perhaps, most probably so. It should have been evident that you would put that traitor before your own husband.” It took Draco a moment to realise the traitor was him. “Alas, we all make mistakes, and this has been mine. Hopefully your stay will eradicate whatever traces of motherhood are still left.” Lucius turned, and Draco cringed back, spine against Harry even though he knew his father wouldn't be able to see them hidden in the dark of the staircase, the hand which wasn't holding his wand curling tightly around Harry’s. 

Lucius paused before a section of wall, and Draco knew from experience what was kept there. Rows of potions lined the inbuilt shelves, their nefarious contents ranging in affect, yet each as evil as the last. After much debate, Lucius finally chose one and turned back to his wife. “Oh, yes” he purred lowly. “This shall do nicely. Do you know what it does, my beautiful Narcissa?” When no reply was forthcoming, he carried on. “One of Severus’ inspiring creations, if memory serves. You see, it causes the drinkers skin to become sensitive, unbearingly so, to the point that even the softest caress of a feather will be excruciatingly painful. Unfortunately for you, you refuse to rise from the floor, so this will hurt ever more. Some incentive, perhaps. 

He uncorked the potion and Draco moved, surging forward with his wand raised, the only mantra in his head  _ no, not now, not my mother.  _ In hindsight, it would have been a perfect time for an epic catchphrase. Something along the lines of ‘halt fiend, your time is done!’ Or perhaps ‘Is this enough incentive for you, Father’ before he cast a caressing Crucio.

In reality, it was all he could do to stop his throat drying up, and still the fear  shaking his body. He ran forward unthinkingly, towards his father, the only word voiced a desperate “Stop!”

It was enough, though, to still Lucius’ hand. 

“Draco?” he asked, incredulous, and his calm mask twitched. “What a pleasant surprise.” He straightened, hand clasping the ornate end of his cane. “What brings you down here? Missing home? Its creature comforts?” The last part was said with a sneer. 

“If by creature comforts you mean the daily rape and violation, then no, I don’t miss that.” Draco's wand was held at his side, and he saw the moment Lucius noticed it, the quick twitch of his eyebrow.

“May I ask how you procured your wand? I was under the impression it was unfortunately lost when Potter and his gang of misfits decided to escape via my ex house elf.” 

Draco gave an undignified snort, an involuntary response to the fear circling his system. “You can ask, Father, but I’m not going to tell.”

“So I see you’re the obstinate brat you have always been.” Lucius’ tone held a sinister edge. “Obviously your time on the streets didn't teach you anything.”

“It taught me that there was more to life than your cock up my ass, or Voldemort’s love of muggle torture devices.”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” Lucius’ facade cracked, his face taut with fury. “You failed him, and threw the Malfoy name into the dust. You, and that bitch lying on the ground.” He delivered a swift kick to Narcissa’s side, before casting a quick Incarcerous at Draco, binding him totally and sending his wand skittering across the floor. “I see that you’re wand skills are as pathetic as ever.”

Draco struggled futilely against the ropes holding him captive. Once again - too many times - he felt as helpless as he always had, bound and defenseless, waiting for judge, jury, and executioner. He thought he had changed, started to overcome the obstacles his past had put before him, yet now, captive in the place that haunted his dreams, by the man who had ruined his childhood, he felt like the scared boy at Hogwarts.

The scared, pathetic whore from the streets.

“Cat got your tongue,  _ Dràkon?”  _ Lucius sneered, purposely using his mother’s pet name. “Why are you here, Draco? Did you think you could crawl back here, begging on your knees, and I would forget your past transgressions? You’re no son of mine. Just a whore. A pretty little whore who sucks filthy muggles off just so he can survive. Did you think I wouldn't know?”    

“I think you would know all about me being a whore, considering you were the one who trained me.”

Lucius raised a delicate blonde brow. “I would watch your mouth, Draco. Or perhaps, watch your mother instead.” In a quick movement, he had one hand wrapped around Narcissa’s throat, pulling her face up so he could pour the forgotten potion down her throat. She coughed, sputtering.

“You fucking cunt!” Draco screeched, hands clawing desperately at the ropes. “I hate you. I fucking hate you! Harry!”

“Begging for Harry Potter to save you now, Draco? That’s low, even for you. Unfortunately, Potter’s dead, to the best of my knowledge, and no amount of screaming can wake the dead.” 

“There’s nothing I wouldn't do for Draco, including rising from the sweet burn of Hell.” Harry walked casually forward, his stance loose and unhindered, as if out for a Sunday stroll and not caught facing off against Lucius Malfoy. 

"Potter?” Lucius spat, yet for the first time there was fear in his eyes. “Hanging out, one whore to another, are you?”

Harry shrugged. “Something like that.” A low moan echoed through the room, a sound which rose in pitch until Narcissa was wailing, eyes closed and hands clutching at the air hysterically. “What did you do to her?” Harry asked, voice taking on a hard edge. 

A smile played on Lucius’ lips. “Just a little potion. Severus’ recipe. Nothing she didn't deserve.”

“You’re nothing, Lucius.” Harry moved to stand beside Draco, brushing a hand along the curve of his back. “A coward who hides behind money and politics, builds himself up by raping children and innocents.” Potter’s hand came to rest against Draco’s back once again, making small up and down motions against the ropes. “Your son is twice the man you will ever be.”

“Does he suck you that good?” Lucius had let his guard down once it was evident Harry wasn't going to duel him. “Remember, Potter, I taught him everything he knows.” 

“You didn’t teach me how to love” Draco interrupted fiercely. “That I managed on my own.”

“Was that before or after Dolohov had his way with you?” Lucius questioned sadistically. “Oh yes, I know all about that.” Something pressed into Draco’s palm, the stone, and he belatedly realised Harry had managed to cut his ropes. “May I see your Mark, Draco? I heard they made vast improvements to it.” 

Lucius stepped forward, close,  _ too close,  _ and Draco cut him.

It was a wild slice through the air, his movement erratic, but the rock managed to connect with the side of Lucius’ face, a bright crimson streak instantly welling under the cut. “Wand, Draco!” Harry yelled, and Draco dived, propelling himself around his father, joy surging through him as his hand wrapped around the familiar length. Lucius had regained his stance, pulling his own wand own to point it straight at Harry. “You will regret ever setting foot in my House, Potter” he snarled.

“Expelliarmus!” Draco yelled, and Lucius’ wand sailed out of his hand, Harry catching it deftly. “Don't you dare, Father. Don't you dare point your wand at Harry.” 

Lucius spat. “How far you’ve fallen, Draco. In bed with ‘The Chosen One’.”

“I fell, Father.” Draco took a step towards him. “I fell, and Harry caught me. Crucio!”

They say you have to really mean them, the three unforgivable curses. Unforgivable, because they required the user to feel no remorse, no hesitation, towards their chosen victim. Unforgivable, because once you had stepped off that edge, embraced the dark, there was no going back.

Or so they said.

Lucius dropped to the floor in agony, his mouth contorted in a horrifying O, body twisting and buckling in unnatural distortions. Eventually, Draco stopped, and Lucius collapsed, hands clutching uselessly at the stone beneath him. Draco stared impassively down at the pitiful form curled on the ground, and found he felt nothing but disgust at the vermin before him. “You're lucky I’m nothing like you, Father” he commented lowly. “If I was, I would kill you without a thought.” He turned to his mother, and Harry was already beside her, her screams having trailed off to broken whimpers. “Don’t touch her, Harry” he said, seeing Harry fluttering awkwardly. “There’s nothing we can do for her.”

“Draco” Harry’s voice was strained. “I don't know how to help her.”

“It will wear off. Eventually” Draco replied woodenly. His body, having been fueled with adrenaline, was coming down, his limbs felt heavy and his head foggy. He stumbled, and in an instant Harry was beside him, Narcissa forgotten as he watched Draco break down.

“You did it, Draco” Harry pressed a gentle kiss against Draco’s forehead. “You defeated him.” 

Draco shook his head. “It was too easy, Harry. Nothing should be that easy. I don't trust him not to-”

“Your mistake was leaving me alive, Draco” rasped Lucius. Draco spun to face him, but it was too late, and all he saw was his father shakily raise his hand. “Avada-”

 

“Avada Kedavra!” A flash of green illuminated the room. Sharp, bright, lightning in the storm, and when it dispersed, Lucius was dead.

The stilling of time. One. Two, three.

Before it resumed.

“Draco. Mr Potter” Narcissa breathed, voice weak, and Lucius’ wand was held limply in her hand, scavenged from where Harry had dropped it not moments before.

The thing about the Unforgivable Curses, was that you had to mean them. Mean it, believe it, deep to your soul.

“What a pleasure to see you.”

  
  



	13. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! I'm back! I am so so so sorry for how long this has taken. The chapter took me a few weeks to write, and then my editor/love of my life decided to live her own life for four weeks.
> 
> But we're here, and you finally have the very last chapter plus epilogue!

Lucius was dead. 

Lucius, his father, was dead.

Draco shut his eyes. A regression into childhood; a time where ignorance of what was before you was enough to trick the mind into believing it wasn't there. The undulating blackness which danced under closed lids a reassuring safe haven, a space where monsters couldn't lurk and truths couldn't penetrate. Comfort, in the midst of insanity.

He perceived movement around him. The disturbance of air as Harry moved away from him to some unknown destination, the scrape of his mother’s weight against the damp stone of the floor as she withstood the pain of the potion. 

He was sure that if he stood face to face with himself in the mirror, he would see eyes brimming with the ghosts of his past. An onslaught of memories which had come on like a blood stained hurricane, leaving him a broken man desperately trying to erase the vitriol of his past from his mind.

Yet you couldn't erase the past, the events of time passed only ignorable in the grand scheme of things. His life was his own to live with, his job to withstand the hardships rained upon him, his luck to revel in the pleasures given. As hard as he could try to believe otherwise, this was his life, and he refused to dwell in anamnesis of history foregone.

He opened his eyes, only to find his mother regarding him with longing, love, and terror.

“Draco” she rasped, her voice broken and hoarse, and Draco instantly wished to hush her, save her from the agony as her body worked to produce words. 

“Mother. Please. No more.” He was surprised to hear the roughness of his own tone, the stiffness in his speech. “Just until the potion has worn off. Whatever needs to be said can wait for then.”

Narcissa was silent, and Draco moved to seek out Harry, finding him stood in the far right of the dungeon. “Are you okay? Harry murmured softly, finding Draco’s hand in the flickering light and giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“I will be” he answered honestly. Harry turned to face him, a hand reaching up to cup his cheek in an achingly sweet gesture. He cast a quick glance to Narcissa, his palm hardening on Draco’s face.

“Is this okay? In front of your mother?”

Draco laughed, leaning into the warm hand. “Harry. You’re touching my cheek. I’m sure she would be okay with that. Anyway -” he pressed his lips gently to Harry’s for a second before pulling back “- I would be surprised if she didn’t already know. Or suspect.” 

“When this is all over, I’m going to do much more than palm your cheek.” Harry’s eyes smoldered even in the low light. “I need to make sure you’re intact. Every. Single. Inch. Of. You.” he accentuated the last part, voice dropping and running his gaze suggestively over Draco’s body, making him squirm. 

“Oh really, Potter. Is that a promise?” Draco reached a hand out to brush lightly over Harry’s crutch.

“More than a promise, Malfoy” Harry growled, his hands moving to tighten on Draco’s hips and pull his flush against his body. “When I get you alone I’ll-”

“Draco?” Narcissa whimpered, and Draco pulled away from the intoxicating heat of Harry’s body to move to his mother’s side.

“Mother. I’m here, don’t worry.” His hands rested inches from his mothers, wanting to hold her so badly, yet terrified of hurting her.

Narcissa lifted her head with a grimace to look at Draco directly. “Get... Get Bilbo. I want my rooms.”

“Of course, Mother” he replied immediately, before summoning the house elf.

The elf appeared in front of him, head bowed slightly. “Master Draco be calling Bilbo. How can Bilbo be servicing- _eeeek_!” The elf had spotted Lucius on the floor and his eyes bulged obscenely, hands clutching his pillowcase clothes. “Master Malfoy Sir! Master Malfoy Sir is dead! Oh, Bilbo has been a bad, bad elf and let Master Malfoy Sir die! Bilbo must be punishing himself!” 

“Bilbo!” Draco reprimed with a stern tone as the elf made a lunge for the selection of whips attached to the dungeon walls. “You will not punish yourself! Lucius was a bad man, who was doing his best to hurt my mother and I.”

Bilbo froze with a start, over-sized head turning slowly back to Draco. “Master Lucius Sir be trying to hurt Missus Malfoy?” The elf’s voice rose to an angry squeak. “Nobody be hurting my Missus Malfoy!” He stormed over to Lucius’ body and gave it a sharp kick with his tiny foot, followed closely by another one.

As satisfying as it was to watch the elf kick his father, Draco knew he had to stop it. “Enough, Bilbo.” Bilbo stopped instantly, small body shaking slightly, from anger or exertion he wasn’t sure. “Please escort my mother to her rooms and make sure she is as comfortable as possible. Apparition, if you don’t mind. The faster the better.”

“Of course, Master Draco Sir. Bilbo be doing all he can to make sure Missus Malfoy be comfortable.” He hobbled over to Narcissa, curling a hand gently around her forearm before apparating her away with a crack. 

“Elf rage” Harry commented dryly, a smile tugging at his lips. “A true force to be reckoned with.” 

“Don’t knock it, Harry” Draco warned, suppressing a laugh. “I might be tempted to sic him on you.” He looked over to his father, the smile dying on his face. “I’m going to have to deal with... that. I don’t want my mother having to. I’m just not sure how I’m going to...” he trailed off, wrapping his arms around his torso.

“Let me.” Harry moved behind him, wrapping strong, reassuring arms around his waist. “You shouldn't have to deal with that, either.” 

“I hated him” Draco croaked, his voice breaking. “I fucking  _ hated  _ him, yet I still don’t want him dead.” He turned quickly to stare panicked at Harry. “So what the hell does that say about me when I still mourn a man who ruined my childhood!?” Draco’s tone had taken on a hysterical edge.

Harry pressed his lips to Draco’s head, pulling him close in an attempt to soothe the trembles racking his body. “It makes you human, Draco. A much better person than Lucius ever was. You rose above, overcame him despite the power that he wielded. In the end, no Ministry contacts or social standing could protect him from the wrath he brought on himself.” 

Draco plastered on a smirk, yet inside he was silently awed. “When did you become so philosophical?”

“When did you get so sexy?” Harry retorted with a leer.

“Don’t kid yourself, Potter. You’ve loved me since first year Hogwarts.” 

Harry paused, a soppy grin forming. “Possibly, Draco. Perhaps even probable.” 

Draco smiled briefly, before letting out a long sigh. “I need to go check on my mother. Will you be okay down here for a few minutes?”

Harry simply looked at him, and Draco rolled his eyes before leaving.

* * *

*

 

The visit with his mother had been brief, just long enough to assess that she was okay and being looked after, before he had fled as fast as he could. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her - after going five years with no contact he ached for her with an intense longing found only between mother and child - more that he was afraid of the questions he knew he had to ask.

Someday, at least. 

Descending back to the dungeons felt like he was moving down into the  bowels of the earth; the air stale and musty, the walls confining and suppressing. Preparing himself for the task ahead set his nerves on edge and a lump of dread sitting heavy in his stomach, his body screaming at him to run while his mind desperately tried to procrastinate. 

“No, Draco. You do  _ not  _ have to check your winter coat collection” he muttered testily to himself as he wound his way down the crumbling steps before immediately deciding he was going crazy. “It’s the stress. Normally you’re normal-”

“Normally you are most definitely not normal, Malfoy” Harry stated, and it was only then that Draco realised he had almost reached the dungeons, his voice carrying as if in an amphitheater. Entering the space, he paused, observing Harry down on his hands and knees, murmuring softly at the ground. His father’s body was nowhere in sight.

“Harry. What are you doing?” Draco questioned lowly. 

“Cleaning.”

Draco swallowed. “You’re not going to get the blood stains out.”

Harry turned to give him a quick look over his shoulder. “I can try.”

“Where’s my father?” He couldn't bring himself to say ‘body’.

Harry sighed, standing from his position on the ground to wipe his hands casually on his pants. “Gone, Draco. I couldn’t let you deal with that.”

There was an irony in Harry’s words, and Draco wanted to laugh at the fact that he was once again being saved by the Saviour. He owed the man standing in front of him everything. The man in ratty, threadbare jeans and a holey t-shirt, who knelt in the place where he was once held prisoner by his family, to clean blood past spilt from the ground. The man who had drawn him back from the precipice, had forced him to face his demons head on, and conquer them. The man who had lost much more than Draco ever had, who internalised the blame for every drop of blood spilt, and upheld Draco’s body in a misplaced shrine to escapism. 

The man who he loved, and owed his life to.

He reached for Harry, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to curl his hands around Harry’s body, pull him close so that skin melded to skin and heat flowed unbidden. Harry caught him, steadied him, brought their lips together in a kiss that chased away the blackness and heated limbs Draco hadn’t realised were frozen, breathing life into his deadened existence.

A kiss, in this place of torture and death. Exultation and damnation at the same time; a concedence to his besmirched desires, a plea to fill the tainted rooms with something other than bloodshed. 

Harry pulled back, just an inch so that their breath still mingled, yet enough that Draco could see blown pupils and the promise of more. “Here?” Harry breathed, and the fact that he stopped to ask sent Draco skittering off the edge.

“Yes. Here. Now.” Draco’s hands clutched at Harry’s clothes, ripping, tugging, pulling, until his chest was bare and his pants were shoved down to his knees. Harry grinned at Draco’s fervour, his hands replacing Draco’s, pushing down until  

No shyness, no fear. No concern that he was standing bare where Lucius had laid slain not an hour before, only that this was what Draco wanted, and he would give it. 

Give anything, Draco suspected, if he asked.

His hands moved to his own clothes on auto-pilot, hastily removing them with  unconcealed eagerness, his only thought that they be gone,  _ now,  _ the barrier between their bare skin. Harry watched as if Draco was performing the most erotic striptease just for him and not an unwieldy disrobing which had Draco stumbling, caught in his pants, Harry’s gaze roaming over his bare skin with unrestrained lust. Eventually, he too stood naked, and they stared, green to grey, two sides of the same coin, supposed opposites yet parallel in so many ways, each the other’s safe haven in a sea of blood and turmoil. Each the other’s love.

They stared; for one beat. Two, three, before base instinct catapulted them forward and primal desire clouded their brains. 

They met with a clashing of mouths and groping, needy hands, nails digging into soft skin stretched over hips, the press and whimper as dick rubbed against dick. Draco melted against Harry, let the hunger and desperation consume him, lost himself to the sensations that battered his body. A reprieve from the pain, yet is was more than that, more than the arousal and the pleasure and the need. Harry was the island in the middle of the storm, a safety Draco knew with every fibre of his being would always be there to shelter him against the harsh bite of the world. A clichéd hero who had been used over and over again, yet he hoped that in this instance, with this love, he too would get to be just that. To Harry. 

It was him that pulled back with a harsh whimper, he who looked around the room and let his gaze fall upon the wall of shackles. Draco, who pushed Harry back, a hand tight around Harry’s waist so he wouldn't stumble, he who crushed Harry up against the damp stone wall. “I want you to bind me in these” he breathed in Harry’s hair, fingering the cool chains. “But first I want to taste you.”

Draco heard rather than saw Harry’s head thump back against the wall, and he was pulled into a messy kiss that conveyed more than could ever be spoken. Harry’s belief in him; awe. It wasn’t capitulation that had Draco needing the restraint of shackles that had held so much torture, nor was it the thrill of iniquity. He was finally beginning to accept what Harry had preached to him; that wanting the weals Harry created didn’t make him weak, or less than. It made him more, not giving in to the person he was conditioned to be but embracing the want, because it made him whole. 

He dropped to his knees, hands palming Harry’s thighs, nose rubbing along the crease between thigh and pelvis like a cat marking its scent. Harry’s cock rubbed enticingly against his cheek, heavy, hard, hot, making Draco suspect that Harry could smear his slickened tip over every inch of his face, degrade him, leave him with streaks of pre-cum cooling on his cheeks, and Draco would beg for more. 

It was only when Harry started whimpering, garbled pleas of “Draco, yes, please,  _ Draco”  _ that he took Harry’s cock into his mouth, relishing the salty warmth on his tongue and the addictive weight. The throb as he sucked hungrily, tracing the vein that ran along the underside with a feverish intensity, one hand gripping Harry’s balls, the other curling under to press firmly against the soft stretch of skin that made Harry moan delectably. Harry’s hips bucked, forcing his dick deeper down Draco’s throat, and he took it, loved it, the tricks of a whore, learnt on the streets, finally being put to good use. He glanced up under a thicket of lashes, wanting to see Harry’s face as he slowly undid him, and what he saw could have been a case-study in lust - pleasure -  _ abandonment _ , Harry’s mouth parted slightly and hands clenched at his sides.

As if feeling Draco’s stare Harry looked down, his eyes connecting to Draco’s with an unrestrained hunger; burning need clashing with unmistakable tenderness so out of place amongst the primal desire. 

“Wait, Draco” Harry abruptly growled, hand reaching down to clasp Draco’s jaw, holding him back from sucking. “I want you in chains. Now.”

“Didn’t you like my ardent display of affection for your penis?” Draco breathed, fluttering his lashes in a brazenly coquettish manner and only just managing to hold back a snigger.     

“Your  _ affection  _ should be banned by the Ministry” Harry roughly replied, fingers tracing the sharp angles of Draco’s jaw. “But I meant what I said. You. Bound.” He lowered his voice. “Please?” 

Draco smirked. “Make me.” 

“Make you?” Harry repeated lowly, fingers moving down to wrap lightly around Draco’s neck. “Are you quite sure about that?” His fingers tightened slightly and Draco let out a stifled moan, the sensation going straight to his cock.

“Quite sure, Potter.” Draco breathed. “Why don’t you show me what you can really do? Or are you too scared to fail in the face of adversity?” 

“Your dick is hardly my opponent, Draco. More my ally” and with that, Harry took said ally in hand and gave it a sharp tug, while tightening his other hand around Draco’s windpipe. His hands clenched where they were resting on Harry’s hips and his mouth fell open to a small O, lidded eyes growing heavy. A hitched intake of breath, as he felt his oxygen lessen, and the heady knowledge that it was Harry controlling it.

With an alarmingly dexterous movement, Harry spun them, throwing Draco up against the wall and lifting him, spreading his arms, nimble fingers working the cold steel cuffs around Draco’s thin wrists. He bent down and attached the ankle restraints, giving a pleased moan when he stepped back to take in the view of Draco suspended as if in some bizarre imitation of a sacrificial cross, arms and legs spread in a taut X and head hung.

In Draco’s case, though, it was hung as he tried to regain his composer, even as his dick leaked demandingly and his breath came in short pants.

“Your shoulders and wrists will get sore” Harry commented conversationally, running a finger along the line of bunched muscle between shoulder blade and neck, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. 

“Doesn't seem like there’s much I can do about that, is there?” Draco dryly replied, flexing his wrist to test the hold of the shackles. They didn't budge. 

Harry closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them they were dark with want and his voice was husky. “I’m going to choke you now. Choke you, then bleed that pretty aristocratic neck of yours and lap at all the blood that runs down your pale skin.” 

Draco blinked. Gulped, swallowed, before his eyes fluttered closed and he tilted his head, presenting his neck as much as he could given his bindings.

An explicit show of permission. A symbolic acceptance, for not only this, but everything.

Harry grunted before moving his hand, bringing it around so his thumb was on one side of Draco’s neck and his fingers the other, Draco’s chin resting on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Harry squeezed, eyes never leaving Draco’s, and Draco moaned, blood rushing to his dick and his body reacting even as his mind started to plead for oxygen. He could feel his heartbeat hammering under Harry’s thumb, feel the pressure building and his vision distort. He wondered, briefly, if Harry was going to let him black out, and part of him welcomed the idea even as his head screamed for help. 

Yet just before he felt himself pass out, Harry’s fingers loosened, thumb lightening to stroke over his adam's-apple, massaging the tender flesh. Draco gulped in a desperate breath, throat protesting slightly, arousal running deep through his body. He wanted Harry. Wanted him to fuck him, slam his body against the wall, make his limbs ache from the restrains even as his ass was used over and over again. “Bleed me” he managed to groan out, wishing he could pull Harry to his neck. 

Harry smirked, yet his own desire was evident and he complied quickly, dragging his thumb over the side of Draco’s neck. It stung, and Draco stifled a gasp, only realising when he felt a bead of blood well over the cut that Harry had used wandless magic to slice him.

Fuck,  _ Merlin, _ Draco hadn't realised anything could be that  _ hot.  _

Harry’s mouth was on him in an instant, tongue lapping at the rivulets of blood making their way down Draco’s neck, sucking hungrily at the wounds and moaning in delight as the crimson rushed into his mouth. Draco groaned, begged, his body reacting to Harry’s ministrations with a feverish intensity, needing everything Harry had to offer. He pulled helplessly at the shackles holding him prisoner, wishing he could put his hands on Harry - to pull him closer, to push him for more, he wasn't sure - only that it wasn't enough.

It was never enough. 

Harry’s mouth left Draco’s neck, moving down to suck at his nipples, one after the other, before nipping and pulling them harshly between his teeth, leaving them pink and sore. An achingly sweet kiss on each left Draco fighting a blush, before Harry was once again moving down, nosing at the pale skin on show for him, paying homage to Draco’s body as if it was a gift from Merlin himself. Hot breath danced over his cock, and Draco barely had a chance to moan before Harry’s mouth engulfed him, enthusiastically sucking him with a zeal he hadn’t known possible for dick.  

“ _ Salazar,  _ Harry” Draco managed to breathe when Harry came up for air, his cheeks shiny and lips swollen. “Were there dick sucking classes held in the Gryffindor common room that I didn't know about?”

“Something like that.”

“You would have made a killing as a whore” Draco muttered, head falling back against the wall with a soft thud as Harry proceed to swallow him once again. 

A glint appeared in Harry’s eye, and he pulled back slowly so that his lips were almost, yet not quite caressing the tip of Draco’s cock. “Would the customers have enjoyed this?” he whispered lowly, before raising his hand and rolling a neatly contained fireball up over Draco’s torso. 

It was decidedly un-Slytherin to say that time stopped, but Draco had decided long ago that he really didn’t give a shit about the silver and green, and if he wanted to be a clichéd mess, he could be one. It was true, anyway, that time did indeed seem to stand still as the ball seared over his skin, his eyes following its progress, hypnotised. It pricked at his skin, hot and alluring, warm enough to leave behind a pink trail, yet not enough to burn the skin. 

Yet.

Draco choked. Closed his eyes, clenched his hands. Whimpered “again.” 

Harry complied. 

Another fireball flowed over his body, a trail of steam rising in its wake as its heat evaporated the moisture on Draco’s skin. A slightly different path; a slightly different tangent, yet enough that the second overlapped the first and Draco hissed at the burn, his eyes fluttering helplessly at the sensation. He opened them to find Harry grinning up at him, a flame burning in his open palm. “I’ve always been good with fire” he said, and it sounded like a promise.

“Such a Gryffindor” Draco sneered, yet he was more focused on the hand that was coming closer and closer to his junk, the flame flickering menacingly in the low light. The hand, that was ghosting over his hips, tracing down his thighs. Hovering between his spread legs. A game of fear; promise. A need to push the boundaries and revel in the sensations - tangible evidence that this was real. That they were alive. 

Harry’s hands suddenly gripped his hips, holding him over the two perfect lightning bolt scars, and Draco screamed. Part shock, part pain, part  _ lust,  _ moaning at the loss as Harry moved them away, only to land over his nipples. His body spasmed, anguish flooding his system, relief instantaneous as the burn was replaced by the wet soothe of Harry’s tongue. 

“Enough.  _ Enough”  _ Draco panted, head bowed. “Just fuck me already you fucking bastard.” 

Harry’s dry laugh echoed around the dungeon before Draco’s feet were abruptly freed and his legs manoeuvred under Harry’s arms. “Like this, Draco?” Harry purred, hands caressing Draco’s thighs. “Fuck you like this? Bound to the wall in Daddy’s chains?” Draco nodded wildly, and when Harry slammed into him, he felt at home. 

“You are fucking exquisite” Harry panted as his thrusts pushed Draco’s back up and down against the stone walls, grazing the pale skin. “With your tightness and your blood and your legs and your you.” Draco could only moan in response as Harry took him harder, his ass protesting and sore even as Harry hit the bundle of nerves which sent him gasping helplessly, fervently wishing he had the use of his hands even if it just meant wanking himself off. Harry pushed him higher, taking the weight of Draco in his arms, moving his hips so that he could fuck that little bit harder, Draco’s body suspended in more ways than one. “I’m not going to touch you” Harry groaned lowly, breath panting. “I know you can cum without it. Cum, Draco.” Draco whimpered, and when he felt his back rip under the harsh bite of the wall from Harry’s thrust, Draco knew he was gone. He cried out as ecstasy blinded him, his body exploding, limbs clenching, carrying him high on a cloud of contentment.

He was only vaguely aware of Harry’s replying moan, the increase of pace and the frenzied loss of rhythm. Yet when a hot - too hot,  _ burning hot  _ \- hand pressed firmly to his chest, he screamed, the sound getting lost as Harry found his own release. Draco looked down, and although it could have been only seconds, a minute, he could clearly see the perfect imprint of Harry’s hand seared into his skin. 

Over his heart.

Green to grey their eyes met. “Mine” Harry replied, answering the unspoken question that had passed between them. The explanation. “You’re mine.”

Draco thought of where he was now, where he had been. The paths he had travelled to get to this point, all with Harry by his side. 

“Always.” 

 


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure you read the final chapter before this; I posted them at the same time.

When he was twenty two he learnt acceptance. How the events of the past faded over time, and whilst they never disappeared, one could begin to live with them. Even though one had once done wrong, it didn't mean they would forever be wrong. What his body craved didn't make him less - a deviant, an abomination - and it was okay to give in to the free fall, because someone would catch him.

When he was twenty two he learnt forgiveness. Of others. Of himself. Actions and consequences of younger selves forgivable, irrelevant in present day. How what you thought you knew wasn't always the truth; simply a façade, a mask worn, not so different from his own. To move on, history had to be released and the slate wiped clean. Bend before you broke.

When he was twenty two he learnt that it was okay to be happy in a world which was broken. Happiness didn't mean someone, or everything, was better. More that they had clutched at a bright spark in a sea of darkness and held on. The sharp sting of pain, the hypnotic crimson of blood - they were fundamental to the contentment that he now felt; fundamental to his happiness. He learnt there was only so far one could repent, before it was time to move on.

When he was twenty two he learnt of love. For himself. For another. From another.

When he was twenty two, he learnt how to live.

*

_You come to me in a clutch of pain_

_Of blistering heat and sorrows gained._

  
_Upon my frozen lips you press_   
_A promise of more and searing regret._   
  
_You think it's you; I think it's me_   
_Both of us down on our knees._   
  
_You harbour hate, I harbour pain_   
_The vice grip of a past we can't regain._   
  
_So do we move forward in our strife_   
_Forget the wrongs that haunt the night?_   
  
_One step forward, two steps back_   
_The grasp of your hand the only attack._   
  
_The present lurks, I cannot stay_   
_Release me from this world of pain._   
  
_You don't let go; hold me tight_   
_Be the savior I was forced to fight._


End file.
